The Revenge Of Darkrai
by Librarian00X
Summary: "...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." -Stephen King
1. Descending Darkness

_(I own nothing, although I sure wish I owned Darkrai. Does this fanfic earn me parental rights or something? Come oooonn, Darkrai's the shiz! DX)_

_((Same rule applies for all my stories: see run-on words? Ignore 'em. It's my computer being a bitch.))_

_(((Contains a rather tragic one-sided Eclipseshipping (atleast I think that's the term), likely to have variable and equally tragic amounts of Twinleafshipping in the future. Contains graphic scenes of violence, angst, and brutal character death. Viewer discretion is advised.)))_

_((((LONGEST DOCUMENT EVER WRITTEN BY ME! WOOT! 8D))))_

* * *

_**Descending Darkness**_

* * *

I remember that day perfectly; like I'm living it this very moment. As if this was all happening before my eyes.

It was a cool summer day of some month that escapes my memory. Human terms and time passage mean very little to me; it stopped having value after the first few centuries. I'm disgusted with humans, and want nothing to do with them. They scorn me. They hate me. They curse me. But what do they know about me? Nothing. Have they even made so much as an effort to learn? No. Humans know all. They know everything there is to know. They, the high and mighty human race, would know what is and what is not! How dare one question _their_ extent of knowledge! _Humans; _the most grotesque cacophony of ignorance and stupidity I've ever had the misfortune to meet. You know what, I'm almost _glad _my powers terrify them so. I get a nice kick out of seeing the high and mighty members of the arrogant human race scream and writhe in terror as they come to the realization that they're completely helpless and at my mercy. Maybe things would turn out nicely if they were nicer to me. Maybe, if they tried to be my companion, I would have mercy. Maybe, if they even made an _effort _to understand who and what I am, I would have the heart I know I have and spare them the torment.

They don't. They won't.

And neither will I.

These things are always present in my mind, but they never bothered me too much; I'd long since become desensitized to the pain. Harming innocents, terrorizing helpless souls...boring. The same old thing, day-in and day-out. It doesn't even make me flinch. I've even gone so far as to think maybe I was given this role because they _deserved _the pain; because Arceus knew, perhaps better than I do now, that they're selfish, ignorant creatures worthy of only the greatest pain and torment for their sinfulness. In that case, Arceus is simply a lazy bastard that doesn't want to waste the Judgment attacks and made me do it for him instead. Does that high and mighty asshole even realize what this job has done to me? How it's torn me apart over the millennium? How much pain I've felt? Surely He does; He's the God Pokemon, after all. The Original One. The omnipotent God that He is would know what I'm going through, since He's so wise and all. If that's so, why is it that He doesn't give a rip what happens to me, his servant, who has done nothing but do what he fucking got told to do in the first place, no matter how much it hurt? What did I ever do to Him, huh? Why is our Lord Arceus so _heartless?_

That didn't matter to me; I was desensitized to the pain. It wasn't even discomfort anymore. And it wasn't on my mind.

I sat there in my crater - a dark, damp, cold hole in the ground; a perfect place for a pokemon like me to relax - hovering several inches above the ground, eye closed in contemplation, my mane and shoulder spines flowing as though in an invisible breeze in my meditative state. I'd been like this for quite some time now, though the exact length of that time eluded me, reflecting on memories both old and new, mulling them over, pondering...waiting. For what? I can't be sure. Maybe I was waiting for some kind of divine revelation to appear before me...not that Arceus would ever waste his time giving me such an honor. I think I was waiting for some sort of resolve to solidify within me; some amount of nerve to gather that I could grab and run with to do what I planned to do. As soon as I figured out what I was planning to do, I was going to have to find the courage to do it.

The reason for my meditation? I was in love. In love with my polar opposite.

It's pathetic, really; it would be the equivalent of Groudon falling helplessly in love with Kyogre, or Dialga with Palkia. It just doesn't work. Think about it: the being of darkness; the being of healing. The pokemon of nightmares; the pokemon of soothing dreams. The Pitch-Black pokemon; the Lunar Pokemon. She is loved and cherished by all; I'm the abhorrence of the world. Her presence is met with smiles and relief; my only greeting is a scream of terror and something hard being flung at me from the nightstand. Even our _homes _are completely different; I sit in solitude of the dark, desolate isle of Newmoon Island, while she basks in the warmth of Fullmoon Island, surrounded by all the friends and companions she could ever ask for. You'd think we would repulse.

You'd be wrong.

My past is one of angst and isolation in the utmost darkness. When I wasn't plaguing the world with nightmares, I was forced to live in my own, shunned by everything I came into contact to, even the light itself. Ever since I can remember, I've been hated. People would just as soon shoot at me as they would look at me; the only looks I got that weren't ones of hate were of the empty eyes of the dead, the victim in my grasp scared so much that their heart seized up and they went into cardiac arrest - a heart attack. Literally scared to death. Anywhere you go, anyone you ask, the name "Darkrai" is regarded with fear and disgust; I'm a dark, soulless monster, they say. I'm the spawn of evil, they say. I have no heart.

That's funny...I have to have a heart, because it's always breaking.

I tried my best to make friends at first. I was scorned and shoved away, sent into the exile I had come to know so well. Those that I felt that could be trusted later turned out to be some kind of fanatic or poacher, trying to capture me and detain me so they could burn me at the cross or sell me for a quick dollar. I hoped that I could find someone who could understand - if I couldn't, I just wanted someone to _listen. _To hear out my story. I know it's hard to understand, and I didn't expect them to, having not been through such a thing themselves, but I just wanted them to _try. Try _to get to know me. _Try _to understand why I was who and what I had become. Why I turned out to be me.

They didn't listen. They already "knew" the whole thing. I was a monster that needed to be vanquished, or a block of gold needed to be added to their stockpiles of wealth.

I suppose it was after the first millennium or so that my hope turned to hate. They didn't know me. They didn't know who I was. They _still _don't. Yet they claim to have me all figured out, and feel comfortable scorning and hating me for the creature they've decided I am? Who are _they _to judge _me? I'm _the one being wronged in all of this! Not them, _me! I _was the victim! Why did they punish the one that had it the worst of them all?

A century passed before I gave up hope. Another few centuries went by before I replaced it for animosity. I was a cold, heartless monster, just like they decided I was. There was no talking them down, by Arceus, so I might as well just prove them _right, _and make them _regret it_. I became the demon they depicted me.

Until _she _came along.

Cresselia was...oh, sweet Cresselia. Sweet, precious Cresselia. She'd been following me about for quite some time; always was I on the move, so never did our paths cross, her always following my shadow to cleanse those that were being tormented by the unspeakable nightmares I bestowed on them. She, too, had come to hate me from seeing my work first-hand, and early on she had vowed to stop me, always trying to outrun my nightmares in an effort to come closer and confront me. One day, our paths finally crossed, and she hoped to smite me to end the reign of terror I had bestowed upon the land.

She was surprised by what she saw.

Instead of the monstrous demon she imagined me to be, Cresselia found the mighty lord of darkness Darkrai huddled in the corner of a crater, hugging his "knees," tears freely streaming from that one, ravenous blue eye. Instead of evil, she looked in that eye and saw pain; hurt, angst, misunderstanding. Loneliness. The last raid had been too much for me to bear; having not broken down like this for nearly a millennium, all of my pent-up emotions suddenly burst forth all at once, exploding out through my mind and ravaging my already tortured conscience. Instead of challenging her to a duel of fates and beginning some kind of epic showdown, I feebly dragged myself towards her, hugged her shadow, and wept, begging again and again for death; for freedom from this pained existence.

Cresselia was stunned. She had never, ever anticipated seeing me for what I was now: a cowering, hysterical black mass, curled up into a ball on the ground, staining the earth with bitter tears. She watched me for a good long while, listening to my moans and sobs with hard eyes, as if suspecting foul play. Eventually, that hardness softened, revealing to me emotions that fluently changed from suspicion to confusion, disbelief, until finally it began to shift towards...pity. Sorrow. _Compassion. _Such a warm, nurturing pokemon...she knew I was misunderstood. She eventually managed to calm me, telling me she understood why I was like I was, and that she truly felt remorse for my predicament. She told me that if there was anything she could do, that she would do it, and that I shouldn't hesitate to ask it of her.

I stared at her in shock. Nobody had ever said that to me before. Nobody had said _anything _to me before, except in the form of curses and insults and pleas for mercy. I don't know how I was supposed to respond, but I did so in the form of a hug. The being of darkness threw himself forward to embrace the beautiful lunar swan before him, pressed his head into her plumage, and wept.

She hovered there and embraced me for hours until I finally passed out from hyperventilation.

And now, here I hovered, deep in a meditative trance as I pondered my feelings, trying to gather some kind of nerve to confront the pokemon I loved. I loved her; _of course _I loved her. I'd been aware of that for quite some time, though I'd been suspecting these feelings over for several centuries. An old, withered ball of hate and spite tends to take a while to figure out what love means on its own. But, now I knew it - I was in love - and I had to decide what to do with it. What does one do with something like love? Silly question...they offer it to the other. If they return the feelings, then the love is mutual, and the happiness can flow. Both can be at ease in one another's presence, knowing that their love is assured and wouldn't change for the world.

_But what if she _doesn't _return the feelings?_

I felt a chill run up the length of my spine, dropping a lead weight of dread into my stomach that I hurried to direct my attention away from. There was no sense worrying about that sort of thing now; I needed to _build _my courage, not chop it down with the dreaded "what if?" scenarios that would give even _me, _the pokemon of darkness, nightmares. Ironic; something as small as personal feelings was all it took to give the infamous Darkrai trouble sleeping at night.

...stupid thought. _Of course _I had nightmares. I had them most of the time I slept, in fact; haunted by the things that I'd done in the past, what my life had become. I felt and dreamt just like everyone else did. Not that they'd ever tell you that.

I batted the idea back and forth numerous times, scaling up and down on my teeter-totter of doubt, trying to find some kind of balance between the two. Eventually I just swallowed my tongue, took in a deep breath, and flew into the air, directing my course towards Fullmoon Island, mouthing the words I knew would never come when I got there. This was something I had to do, regardless of how afraid I was.

I was scared. Darkrai, the lord of darkness, was scared out of his mind.

But there was no turning back now. I _needed _to do this. I was tired of always drowning in angst and depression, having to put on a cold, unmoving front to keep my being from spilling out all over the ground. I couldn't keep living like this. I needed to be happy. _I needed Cresselia._

I flew up until my altitude was too high for the clouds to continue, turned in the direction of Fullmoon Island, and took off towards it as fast as I could.

* * *

No sooner did I arrive at Fullmoon Island, I was treated to the usual sights; there was no fog or veil of shadow shrouding this island like it did my own, allowing the warm, bright sunshine to beam down and heat the earth, causing me to cringe at the sting of it touching my skin. Unlike the rough, bare earth of Newmoon Island, Fullmoon Island was a tableau of greens, browns, and pinks, formed together by the trees, grasses, and countless flowering plants flourishing all across the island, looking like a million Celebi had exited their time warp as a group and caused a wall of lush, beautiful plant life.

I scowled. It was too bright, too...lively for my tastes. The humble, sobering chill of a deep, dark shadow...that's more like it. Chill and blackness; that's where Darkrai finds comfort. This place was just too festive for me, but for Cresselia, it was perfect. Often times I would find her floating around, hovering happily about the fields of flowers, breathing in their fragrance and feeling the tickle of grass on her underbelly, happy as a clampearl just to be around the scenery I curled a lip at. She wasn't here, though, for which I was thankful; this place was always too damn warm and bright. Sinking down and fusing into the shadows of the blades of grass, I flowed between strands of black towards the hill farther off, where Cresselia had built her nest. When she wasn't basking in the sun, she was dozing in the shadows, which I was happy to embrace.

I was surprised to find her cave empty, her nest disheveled and cold from having not been used. I frowned. Generally, when Cresselia wasn't in the meadows, she was sleeping in her cave; if she wasn't in her cave, she was in the fields, admiring the flowers and humming a little tune to herself. If she was in neither place, she was out for a stroll around Fullmoon Island, flying at Hugh speeds along the coast, taking I'm the beauty of the ocean. That wasn't any good; if she was flying, she could be anywhere right now, and it would take a while for her to tire and come back. I could already feel myself getting anxious; waiting wasn't usually a problem for me, but today, things were...different. I had so much to tell her, and I had to _wait?_ That just wouldn't do. I needed to talk to her _now!_

Frustrated at her absence, I was about to leave and try to track her down when something caught my eye; a light shimmer. I glanced over at Cresselia's nest, noticing the light dust that has covered the woody fibers and vines weaved throughout her bedding. Narrowing my eyes, I lowered myself in closer, the air disturbance from my hovering causing a small puff of purple dust to be displaced into the air. I inhaled-

A few of the dust particles flow up my nose, burning the inside and causing my lungs to shudder, evoking a gag. I could feel the burning spreading down my throat into my gut, tinting my flesh purple as it rapidly spread through my system. Coughing in surprise, I quickly pumped a Refresh out, sighing in relief as the soothing warmth spread through me, skin returning to it's normal black pigmentation. _PoisonPowder?_ I shook my head to shrug off the last of the disorientation. _Why is there PoisonPowder in Cresselia's nest? She can't learn that move, can she?_

My eye widened in realization. _Someone tried to poison her. Cresselia's in danger._

Without hesitation I twisted around and tore out of the cave, summoning a plume of purple spores in my wake from the air displacement. I had to find her. The love of my life was in danger. She could need my help.

As it turned out, my hypothesis was right on the mark.

I found them in a clearing in the forest, the grass and earth torn up and blasted away in places, a few trees splintered and toppled, showing where something-or some_one-_had been smashed into them. Cresselia was on the far side of said clearing, barely hovering in place, head drooping as her neck wavered with the strength necessary to hold her head up. I saw two pokemon - a tall, burly Breloom, and a large, stocky Empoleon - standing poised before her, ready to strike. There were a pair of humans behind them - "trainers," no doubt; I hadn't a doubt in my mind that they were here to capture Cresselia and enslave her, as they did every other pokemon they came across - but I paid them no heed at the moment. All I could think focus on was Cresselia.

Cresselia raised her head up to face the attacking pokemon, outline shimmering as she channeled a Confusion attack. The Empoleon quickly ducked in front of the Breloom for whom the attack was meant, barely moving as the psychic energies just about bounced off his metallic hide and deflected back into the air on a million planes, almost completely unaffected by the attack. The Breloom leaped up on the Empoleon's shoulders, jumping off it as it leaped towards Cresselia, fists clenched and glowing an angry red as it prepared to land a Fire Punch on the Lunar swan.

I wouldn't allow that to happen. Almost without thinking I fused to the shadows, darting rapidly through the shade in the grass before I ended up directly between the charging breloom and Cresselia's prone form; I could tell by the purple hue her body had that she was poisoned. Damn it, I came too late! The Breloom swung-

-just as I materialized out of the ground, upper-cutting a Sucker Punch directly beneath its chin. The Dark-type move wasn't particularly effective, but my power was far beyond being limited by things as petty and trivial as type disadvantages and match-ups. My kind didn't take on Dialga and Palkia on its own because it was weak, after all. The Dark energy, though dissipated slightly by the Breloom's atomic structure, was more than enough to lift the Fighting-type up off the ground, sending the mushroom pokemon flying up through the air back towards where it had come, crashing into its surprised blue teammate. I didn't watch long enough to see their stunned faces as they collected themselves, rushing to Cresselia's side. _"Cresselia!"_

Disorientated and dizzy from a combination of fatigue and poison, Cresselia lifted her head to look at me, straining as though her neck was made of lead. There were countless bruises and abrasions across her body, tufts of her silky plumage burned away or torn out from the battle, looking well and truly exhausted. How long had they been battling her? _"Dark...rai..?"_

I wiped a trickle of blood from her forehead, eye growing hot as tears threatened to form. I could already feel the moisture building up...what had those brutes _done _to her? How could they do this to something so precious and beautiful? _"Its okay, Cresselia...I'm here now. I'll keep you safe. I won't let them hurt you."_

"Dude!" the one boy exclaimed, green scarf being tossed slightly by the arm that shot up to point at me. His blonde hair was shaped ever so vaguely like horns, perhaps hinting at his tenacity beneath the juvenile appearance. "Check it out! It's Darkrai!"

"Darkrai?" the brown-haired boy repeated, running his hands through his bangs, panic apparent. My presence was clearly not anticipated when they plotted this little fiasco. "Aw, geez, Barry, now what? This wasn't according to plan!" I could smell the fear radiating off of him, all but making him tremble in my shadow. Foolish though they were, at least they were smart enough to know that they should be afraid; _very_ afraid. Maybe they were as stupid as I thought.

Of course, humans have a tendency to prove me wrong all the time.

Barry smirked, getting a gleam in his eye similar to the one a man gets when he realizes there's a pot of gold sitting out there, and all he has to do is come out and take it. His orange eyes flashed with greed; I could tell _exactly _what he was planning without even listening to what came out of his mouth. "This is awesome! Better than we hoped for!"

"W-what? What the hell are you talking about, man? We agreed to capture Cresselia-"

"But now Darkrai's here!" Barry interrupted. "Think about it, Kenny: this is perfect. Now there's two of them; Cresselia for you, with all her graceful moves and elegance, and Darkrai and his powerful darkness for me! One for contests, the other for battles. It's perfect; one for each of us! Now we don't even have to share!"

Kenny looked quite reluctant, giving me a fearful glance as I hovered there, taking in the full extent of Cresselia's injuries. The fear coming from him was rippling now; being debated in an internal conflict within himself. "I-I don't know, Barry...it's Darkrai. Like, _the _Darkrai. You remember all those stories about him scaring people to death? To _death, _man!"

"Oh, please," Barry groaned, rolling his eyes. "Those are all just a bunch of things meant to scare children and make people squirm at night. It's just a pokemon; the two of us can take him!"

Kenny shook his head. "I don't know..."

Barry huffed. "Well, alright then, if you're going to be a baby, then I'll just have to catch it myself!" He stabbed a finger at me, addressing his pokemon. "Empoleon, use Hydro Pump!"

The emperor pokemon had long-since recovered and gotten to its feet, happily obliging to its order. It reared back as if taking a big breath, then fired a massive column of water directly at me, froth spiraling around it like energy or shock waves.

Quickly I grabbed Cresselia in my arms and shot to the side, dodging the pillar of water that punched a dent into the ground where we'd been with relative ease. I flew out of range to the edge of the clearing, using some rocks for cover. I slowly lowered to the ground, sliding Cresselia's prone form to the grass as softly as I could. I could tell by the noises and yells that the trainers weren't pleased with my disappearance, unwilling to let me go without a fight. Fortunately for them, I planned fulfilling that need for combat...but they weren't going to be so pleased with the outcome. _"Stay here," _I told her gently, though I doubted she would be going anywhere. _"I'll be right back."_

Shakily she rose her head, looking at me with a pleading expression. _"D...don't hurt them..."_

I frowned at that comment. How was I supposed to fight and defend her without hurting someone? I knew Cresselia always loved humans, but that request...I couldn't fulfill it. These monsters came here to hurt my love and take her away from me to fulfill their own selfish desires. They needed to be taught a lesson; made an example of. They would rue the day they set foot on this island; I promised myself I would make them regret coming here. Let them truly find a reason to fear the name "Darkrai." _"I'll keep you safe,"_ was my only reply before sinking into the ground, fusing with the shadows beneath the grass.

I would make them pay.

Barry swore, looking all around in the trees for where I had gone. "Arceusdammit...where the hell did it go? Empoleon!"

The blue bird glanced behind a tree, then turned back to it's master, shaking it's head.

Kenny coaxed his Breloom, swearing in unison when the mushroom pokemon gave him a similar response. He let out a frustrated sigh, turning to Barry. "Damn it, man, this sucks. It took us forever to find Cresselia the first time!"

"I know!" Barry snapped, shaking his head angrily at the surrounding shadows. "Just...keep looking! We'll find it eventually." Deciding they could use the extra help, Barry whipped out another pokeball and brought forth a Roserade from the ensuring pink energy. "Roserade, help Breloom and Empoleon find Darkrai!"

Three to one? Oh well; I could beat cheaters as well.

I sauntered around in the shadows a bit, following the enemies that didn't realize I was directly beneath them. Coming up from underfoot, I sprang out of the shadows, seemingly coming from the very earth itself and shoved the Breloom up into the air, who I took completely by surprise. It barely had time to let out a yelp before I pumped a Shadow Ball into it's back, black energy crackling as it burst into the creature's flesh, sending it sailing through the air a second time. The Empoleon snapped around in time to take a burst of Dark Pulse to the face, black aura splashing over it, weakened only slightly from the type disadvantage. Roserade seemed taken completely aback, staring at me in something akin to awe. Darkrai don't just come around every day, after all, and surely my reputation proceeded me. Not that I cared. Both trainers yelped in surprise at my sudden arrival, taking a moment to recover, which gave me plenty of time to shoot over, reach back, and plant a Shadow Punch into the face of the Roserade, who hadn't even had enough time to twitch its arms to attack.

The Breloom and Empoleon staggered to their feet, the latter of which had a large black smear across his face and neck where the Dark Pulse had hit, smoldering an ominous black. The Breloom just looked annoyed, leaning back to crack its back as the Roserade rose up from its spot on the ground, rubbing its jaw with one bouquet-hand. None looked overly pleased with my dramatic and sudden entrance.

The trainer "Barry" grunted in irritation at the mark left on his Empoleon, shooting a look to "Kenny," who nodded and flicked a pair of pokeballs out. A Machoke and Floatzel materialized out of the ensuring pink energy, at which I scoffed. Now it was _five _against one? These humans were pretty determined to catch me.

They were going to be disappointed.

The pokemon all began to take up positions around me, confidence growing as they realized how outnumbered I was. The Empoleon clacked its beak, clapping its metallic wings together before opening them up, bearing the metal claws near the edge and trying to look intimidating. The Machoke and Breloom chuckled in anticipation, cracking their knuckles, the latter of the two swaying its tail eagerly. The Floatzel cracked its neck, licking its chops as the Roserade brought the ends of its thorny whips out from its bouquet arms, grinning. _"You're about to get owned," _it sneered.

I sneered right back. _"What makes you say that? Five to one leaves _you_ at the disadvantage."_

The Roserade scoffed, the others chuckling as Kenny and Barry both finished whatever plan they were going over. Next came a flurry of orders; "Roserade, Growth! Machoke and Floatzel, Focus Energy! Empoleon, Metal Claw! Breloom, Spore!"

The roserade's outline grew blurry as it forced itself to grow slightly, the Floatzel and machoke clenching their fists as their skin shimmered red. The Empoleon rushed in with the edges of its wings glowing silver as the Breloom doubled over to point its head at me, a flurry of green spores erupting from its mushroom cap. The Empoleon gave a surprised noise when I suddenly faded out of reality, digging in its feet to skid to a halt, only to take on a wave of Spores as they raced through the space I had been a moment before. The Empoleon grunted in annoyance, holding its breath to avoid taking in the Spores, as if it would do any good; I materialized behind it, clutching my fists together and landing a Faint Attack into the back of its head. Its metallic hide hurt my hands, but it didn't matter; the already drowsy Empoleon was knocked out cold, flopping heavily to the ground, breathing lightly.

I sneered at the appalled Breloom in mock-appreciation, flicking my wrist at the downed bird to place a Nightmare attack on it. I could see it twitching uncomfortably, face contorting in pain as the amped-up equivalent of the attack tore through its mind, powered up from my natural ability to inflict nightmares. It was asleep, but by no means was it going to be feeling refreshed when it woke up. I was tempted to unleash a Dark Void into it, rather than the watered-down natural equivalent before me, but I couldn't; I was needed to inhabit the Empoleon's nightmare in that, and though it would be much more effective, I wouldn't be able to battle the others, which could give them more than enough time to have a welcoming committee at the ready by the time I came out. So, I just let it writhe in discomfort and turned to face the others. It should consider itself very, very lucky.

Both Barry and Kenny blurted out orders at once, making it hard to sift the two out. Their pokemon mustn't have had the problem understanding like I did, as they all dove in to get me at once. The Roserade snapped out its thorn whips, ends glowing purple in a Poison Jab as the Breloom and Machoke dashed in, fists glowing from a Brick Break and Rock Smash, both of which would be very effective should they hit me..._if _they hit me. See, that's the thing about the shadows: they're pretty hard to catch.

I sank into the ground to hide in the grass, grinning at the sound of bodies colliding above me. I appeared over to the side, unleashing a Dark Pulse before they could recover and managed to blast the Breloom square in the chest, knocking the Machoke back with the aftershock, whose back had a rather painful-looking mark where the Poison Jab had landed earlier. I snickered as I watched them stagger about before I realized I forgot about one of them; I turned to find the Floatzel when it was on me, sinking its fangs into my shoulder, red seeping up where its teeth broke the skin. The Bite wasn't particularly effective, but it was enough to generate considerable pain and piss me off, hence why I grabbed it by the head and flung it over my shoulder, slamming it to the ground. The Breloom became a blur as it zipped over and struck me with a Mach Punch, which I had no chance to dodge; the force of the blow sent me flying back a bit, though I did manage to collect myself after a little while, floating in place as I tried to force air back into my lungs. _Little fucker..._

The gears in the trainers' heads must have started turning, as they started getting clever. Kenny ordered his Machoke to use Cross Chop, charging in at me with arms out like it was going to give me a bear hug. Instinctively I absorbed back into the shadows beneath the grass, going forward to pop up behind it-

"Now!" Kenny blurted. "Roserade, Sunny Day!"

My luck flip-flopped in an instant. I felt a searing pain as the sunlight in the world above intensified to unbearable magnitudes, violently shoving me back into the physical realm as I shielded my eye from the burning heat. The Machoke, which was now directly on top of me, grinned and leaped into the air to hit me, arms swinging and chopping across my torso in an X-shape as I struggled to orientate myself. Pain exploded across my chest, causing me to howl in pain as I was sent flying back, right into the lap of an awaiting Breloom, who sent me hurling the other way with its Low Kick like I was a soccer ball towards its teammates. The Roserade cheered in delight as its thorn-whips snapped out to catch me, digging into my flesh tightly as it slammed me to the ground and dragged me in like a lassoed Tauros. I grunted in frustration and reared my arm back to slash its vines with Shadow Claw, but the grass around me suddenly came to life and became tentacles that snared my hands and yanked them to the ground, the Grass Knot effectively incapacitating me. To further restrict my movement, the Floatzel opened its mouth and blew out an Icy Wind as it stood directly on top of me. The unbearable heat from the sun turned to crippling frigidity as frost formed around my limbs, muscles seizing up from the blistering chill of the ice-type attack. What little hope for movement and escape I had was now completely drained.

The Roserade snickered, thorns continuing to dig into my shoulders and draw pricks of blood from where they burrowed into my flesh, mixing red with my black skin. The Machoke cracked its knuckles as the Breloom planted its foot into my gut, summoning an "oof" as the air again was forced out of my lungs. The Empoleon chose this time to approach, staring down at me for a moment before spitting out the stem of a chesto berry, which it had been keeping in its mouth like a cigar. Its iron-hard foot stomped down as well, causing pain to shoot up my spine as the Machoke added its two-bit as well, the Roserade and Floatzel joining in to what was becoming a full-fledged beat-down. They weren't even using moves anymore, now mindlessly landing fists and feet and knees wherever they could find free space available on my body, each blow like a cannon ball dropping on me. Bones broke; I could feel the sharp _snaps _more than I could hear them over the stomping and grunting above me, indescribable pain tearing through my body like flames, the heat of which burned more than that damned sun ever could, though I'll admit it wasn't particularly pleasant itself. Constricted by vines, Grass Knot, my seized muscles, and the blows that continued to pin me down and threaten to pound me into the ground, I was completely helpless as bruises and wounds ravaged my form, turning my black body a tableau of bloody reds and browns. I had no way of moving or otherwise defending myself at this point; I was completely at their mercy, and every spike of pain that was added made it that much harder to retain consciousness. I was quickly losing this fight. Soon I would be captured, enslaved by those two brute humans, and sentenced to the life of a captive pokemon in the confines of those damned pokeballs...

_Cresselia. _Her pink, helpless form came to mind as my vision tinted black at the edges, imagining her whimpering, hurt and alone behind that rock, listening as I was beaten into a pulp...no. No, I couldn't let them beat me. I had to win. I had to win for Cresselia. I had to protect her. Cresselia _needed_ me!

Pulling up what little strength remained in me, I funneled my energy forward, closed my eyes, distanced myself from the pain, and unleashed the very move that has almost single-handedly earned me my infamous, terrifying reputation: Dark Void.

The move wasn't performed like it normally would be, however; considering that my arms were pinned and locked to the ground, I couldn't very well form the dark energy out in front of me and pump the sphere into whoever was unfortunate enough to suffer my wrath first. That would still leave me out in the open, even if I was capable of performing it, and considering the fact that I was getting the hell beaten out of me, I didn't want to remain in the physical world at that moment. Left with one other option, I chose the only alternative to using my attack: I _became _my attack. My body faded out of reality, becoming a black blanket of ethereal energy in the shape of my form, the surprised pokemon around me suddenly aware that they were punching and stomping on the ground where I had been. The Roserade-whom I had taken a particular disliking for-yelped in surprise when the dark blob suddenly began to mold around its body, shaking its thorn whips in a panicked attempt to free itself, but to no avail; I held firm, spreading up the vines like a viral mold until I came in contact with its head, where I instantly flowed into its skull, leaving behind a wispy black aura where my form had been. The puzzled Breloom, Empoleon, Machoke, and Floatzel took a step back and stared in fear and concern as their green Grass-type companion collapsed like a sack of potatoes, eyes fluttering shut as it was forced into a deep, dark sleep.

I spilled into the pokemon's mind like a pitcher of ice water, sloshing about briefly before I let out a sigh of relief, now completely detached from the pain that had been ravaging my body. I saw the Roserade off in a cognitive corner, confused and frightened, eyes searching out blindly in the abyss that surrounded it, calling out the names of its companions. I grinned; this was going to be fun.

The Roserade suddenly screamed as an overwhelming sense of violation came over it from my reaching into its mind, flipping through the pages of its conscience like an idle browser at a library. _Don't even, _I growled to it, my voice rumbling and infinitely deep from my current state. The screams were amusing, but I was a little busy reading through its life. _Don't fight it. This is __**my **__domain._

My words went unheeded, of course, and I settled for listening contently to its screams as I flipped through its mind, oblivious to its discomfort. This pokemon was like many others; it had become friends with the pokemon of its team; the Staraptor and Heracross I had yet to see, the Empoleon, its trainer named Barry. Typical of most Grass-types, it had a deep love for the natural beauty of nature, one of its favorites being the field of flowers where it had grown up. It had a family prior to being caught, which it distantly missed and wasn't even aware of. It had begun to form feelings for the Breloom of the boy Kenny, whom I presumed was the same Kenny that was trying to catch me. I chuckled darkly, not even restraining myself so I could further unnerve the tormented Roserade. The ones with feelings for another were always the best; I could get a lot of mileage out of this one. _This is going to be fun._

Frightened by my comment, the Roserade babbled as it demanded what I was doing and that I release it immediately. Naturally, I ignored it, instead plunging it down into the darkness further towards one of my favorite places...

_Roserade abruptly stopped babbling as she realized she was alone, the feeling of the Darkrai's claws sifting through his head faded from her awareness. She sighed in relief, brushing herself off with its bouquet arms as she took in her surroundings. She was standing amidst a large, endless meadow, the field of green before her eyes stretching on as far as the eye could see, the faint outline of a windmill gently rotating its rotor in the distance. The sky was tinted a purplish black, the sun completely missing, making her wonder briefly what was illuminating this place before she allowed herself to relax, taking in a nice, deep breath of the breeze that brushed past her, causing a few of her flowers to flutter slightly. The air was so clean here, so pure...she loved it. It reminded her so much of home. But as beautiful as this place was, she couldn't stop to take in the scenery; she needed to figure out where she was and what happened to her friends. "Hello?"_

_No sooner did she call out was Roserade alerted of a presence behind her, snapping around with her thorn whips glowing purple, ready to Poison Jab whatever was behind her into a coma. "Who's there?"_

_"It's just me, love."_

_Roserade's breath hitched, instantly diffusing the toxins flowing through her whips. "B-Breloom?"_

_The Mushroom pokemon stood before her, tail swaying gently, staring at her longingly with those glistening black eyes of his...what was he doing here? Did he get sucked in, too? While that look he was giving her and his tone of voice was a little...strange...she didn't put much thought on it, hurrying to more important matters. "Breloom, what's going on? Where are we? Did that Darkrai ge-"_

_Breloom surprised her by stretching his arm out and putting a crimson claw to her lips in a "shh" gesture, stepping up to meet his arm, still staring at her like before. "It's okay, love. It's just us now."_

_'Love?' 'Us?' Roserade, though slightly flattered and embarrassed by his endearing terminology, shook her head, hating the red that crawled across her cheeks. "Breloom, I...look, we've got to-"_

_Breloom shook his head, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. His arms looped around her waist, arms stretching around to embrace her and pull her towards him._

_Roserade's breath hitched, suddenly aware that she was being embraced, face flushing red in embarrassment. What had gotten into him? As nice as this was, they didn't have time for hugs. "B-Breloom..."_

_The Mushroom pokemon just chuckled, stepping up a bit closer while resting his head on her soft, flower-like head. "So tense...just relax, love," he cooed, voice having this odd soothing quality to it. "It's just you and me now. Relax. Take a nice, deep breath, and just relax."_

_Though blushing profusely, Roserade muttered out a "kay," feeling oddly inclined to do as he said. She closed her eyes and took in a long, deep breath through her nose, grinning slightly at the tickling sensation the light traces of spores emanating from him created in her nose. The normally poisonous spores were completely harmless to her, doing nothing more than caress the insides of her nose, kind of like the way he was stroking the back of her head...those claws felt wonderful. They could rend her in half without a second though, but the way he fondled her, cradled her against him...Roserade was completely undone, pressing up against him, bouquet-like arms coming up to loop around him, nuzzling into his chest. Whatever this was, it was wonderful. She got to hug her dear Breloom, be alone with him at last...she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. "Oh, Breloom..."_

_Breloom chuckled, running a clawed hand up and down her back, smiling at the light coo of approval he got from her. His black, glassy eyes stared down at her longingly like pearls, suddenly tinted with a spike of sorrow. "...I'm sorry."_

_Roserade peeked up to look at him, a light smile on her face. "Don't be. I love it like this..."_

_Breloom smiled a bit, though he shook his head. "No, I mean...I'm sorry."_

_Roserade's warm grin turned to a look of concern, tilting her flower-like head at him. "What for, love? Whatever it is, I'll always forgive you."_

_His eyes pinched shut, as if her words struck a chord. "I...never wanted to hurt you..."_

_Now genuinely confused, Roserade shook her head. "You didn't hurt me, Breloom. What are you talking about?"_

_"I never meant it to happen," he continued, as if unhearing her, eyes pinching shut a bit tighter. "I didn't mean for it...to...I mean, I never..."_

_"Breloom...it's okay, really. I..." Roserade's eyes widened slightly as she became aware of his claws beginning to dig into her back, wincing slightly. "That hurts, Breloom..."_

_"I-I never meant...I didn't want to do it..."_

_Roserade started to become unnerved, trying to pull away, finding his arms to be gripping her too tightly. She could feel his muscles clench around her, claws forming fists on her back...she paused briefly, looking up at him, the way his beak pressed shut...was he...hurting? In pain? "Breloom..."_

_Breloom didn't answer, a film of sweat beginning to trickle down from his mushroom cap. Roserade wanted to pull away now, but stopped when she became aware of a flickering light behind him, and the smell of...something. Deep, coarse, burning her eyes...smoke? She looked up to Breloom again, genuinely concerned, peeking around his arm slightly to see what was wrong. She gasped, eyes popping open. The seeds on his tail were on fire, sending small plumes of smoke up into the air._

_Rather than try to put them out, Breloom only cringed and shook his head. "I-I'm sorry...I never meant to hurt you..."_

_"B-Breloom!" Roserade cried, shaking him slightly to get his attention as the flames began to stretch up his tail to the base of his spine. "Snap out of it! You're burning! Breloom-"_

_"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I didn't want to..."_

_Roserade tried frantically to get his attention now, but it was as though he was in a trance, simply absorbing the pain as the fire continued to consume him, going up the length of his back, down to his legs, red claws now aglow from the flames that burned through him like kindling. The heat was now prickling at her skin, but try as she may to get him to let go or snap out of it, all he would do was babble about how he was sorry, as if oblivious to the overwhelming heat. She screamed now, trying to break free of his grasp, unable to do anything but stare up in horror as the fire consumed his flesh, now reaching around to torch his face, flames and heat spilling down his front. She screamed in terror as the fire threatened to consume her as well, watching the skin of the pokemon she loved bubble and flop loosely like the skin on chocolate pudding that had come to a boil, the pale flesh now beginning to melt and drip from the heat. The skin of his eyelids peeled off his eyes, revealing the black sphere that stared out blankly, tinged with sorrow as they turned to liquid and sloshed down his face like tar, spilling onto her body and evoking a horrified scream. She could now stare directly into his skull as the skin of his neck peeled away, his jaw hollowing as his mouth and tongue spilled out through the bottom of his jaw, the appendage flopping uselessly down his rapidly liquefying front as it writhed, shriveled, and began to burn like the rest of him..._

_Roserade finally managed to break free of him, screaming in disgusted horror as she realized his arms had simply broken off, the dismembered and rapidly liquefying limbs splattering flesh onto her feet as they hit the ground. She turned to run, only to realize that the field surrounding them had been engulfed with flames, the sky choked by a tornado of black smoke that began to spin and spiral all around, picking up fire and becoming a massive, spiraling vortex of flame that seemed to stretch up into the heavens. She could only watch in horrified awe as the tornado began to shift, lifting up off the ground to morph into a round shape, color turning from a vibrant orange to an angry red, a glowering violet, until it turned to an almost icy-blue, edges solidifying and becoming more defined as it took up more and more detail._

_A single, massive blue eye glared down at her, a tiny white spherical pupil tearing through her flesh and boring into her soul, sucking her in through the endless terror that began to engulf her-_

_Roserade screamed._

_And screamed._

_And screamed._

_Drifting away into nothingness, Roserade only continued to scream as the darkness closed in, consuming every fiber of her being, terror-ridden voice echoing ominously off of the endless oblivion...screaming...screaming..._

The sound of laughter quickly drowned out the distant sound of screaming, the harsh, cold voice belonging to none other than yours truly. No matter how many times I put these people through this kind of torment, it always gave me a sick sense of satisfaction that chilled my already frigid heart to temperatures low enough to freeze helium solid. Nature lovers; pyrophobics to the core. It always ended with an eye glaring at them, and they always acted the exact same way when I pulled them down into nothing...how sadistically tickling! I could never get tired of such a spectacle!

Finally yanking Roserade up from the nothing I had plunged her into, I allowed her to have scream in full chorus until she realized that the images were gone, and that I was laughing. Instantly she became filled with a delightful combination of humiliation, anger, hate, and outright hysteria, all of which poured into my being and spread through me, warming my being...ahh, sweet nectar. Delicious, delicious fear. It's enough to make an old Legendary laugh...which is exactly what I did: laugh. I laughed maniacally, filling the infinite void we hovered in with a chorus of resounding laughter that only served to fuel her humiliation and hurt which, in turn, served to feed me and fuel my contentment. Like all the others, she began to sob, cry, weep, scream, rant...and I only continued to laugh. I _loved _her pain. I _adored _her abhorrence. Her humiliation and hysteria chilled me from the inside out, filling me with a satisfying frigidity that I can only compare to as joy. Sick, twisted, demented joy, but joy nonetheless. I couldn't get enough of her misery.

After a little while, my laughter began to die down, now chortling in contentment as I listened to her rant and ramble on. _"You bastard! Y-you...sick...twisted fuck! Mindless savage! Brute! M-monster!"_

I frowned at that last one; I'd been called many a bad thing in my lifetime, but "monster..." simple, yes, but I never liked it. Too...no. Just no. I scowled, then smiled cruelly as I summoned up a vivid image of the pokemon she loved burning alive, staring down at her with eyes that melted out of his head, evoking a horrified, hysterical round of screaming that brought back my sinister laughter with a vengeance. Completely powerless and at my mercy, Roserade began to sob now, terror spilling freely out of her and serving to feed me, let out pained, sobbing whimpers as the gravity of the situation set in.

I laughed for a while longer before falling silent, grinning maliciously at her from everywhere around her, taunting her with my omnipotent presence. _What's the matter? _I sneered, gaining delight in the way she flinched at the sound of my rumbling voice. _You're not __**afraid, **__are you? Oh, that's not a good idea; fear fuels me. I feed off of your misery and terror. Your being afraid makes me all the more powerful, and makes it so much easier to torment you._

Roserade stopped whimpering, trembling as she looked out blindly at the darkness, searching for something that stared her down from every possible angle all around her. I _was _the darkness. I _was _the void. I didn't embrace the darkness; the darkness embraced _me. "How can you live like this?"_

My amusement faltered by her sudden questioning. Mildly interested, I decided to humor her, possibly to use this to shove back at her. _It's quite easy, really; your terror gives me fuel. I feed off of your agony. Weren't you listening?_

Roserade sniffled, shaking her head. _"I-I know...I know that, but...how do you live like this? H-how can...a-a-all this pain...a-and darkness...m-make you happy?"_

I hesitated, pondering her question. I don't know why I was actually listening to her, or why I was actually considering her words. Truth be told, I hadn't really thought about it that much; the darkness and pain were all I knew, having been desensitized to it long ago. Since I was immune to it, that meant that I couldn't feel from it. Ergo, it didn't make me happy. Hence my answer; _It doesn't._

Roserade seemed just as surprised as me that I had answered like I did. _"Then...w-what...does?"_

_Cresselia._

Roserade, now completely taken aback, stared out at the darkness dubiously. _"...seriously?"_

_Seriously, _I replied tersely, annoyed that I had actually taken the time to talk to my victim like I had. _Cresselia gives me purpose. Where everything else is dark and empty, Cresselia is warm and bright. She gives me hope where nothing else does, and makes me smile where no one else can. She's the only one that truly understands me. And for that, she has my heart._

Roserade was silent, completely stunned by my heartfelt answer. I, too, was silent, considering the meaning behind what I said. I meant every word I said; though unsure of why I was saying this to who I was, my sincerity was not at all doubtful. Cresselia is my only true light; even I, the being of darkness, can't live in complete nothingness. Like all other beings, I needed a light; an engine to drive me forward. Cresselia was my light. In the absolute darkness I was forced to live in, Cresselia boldly shone her light where no one else would, guiding me through the nothing like the warm-hearted soul that she is. She's a friend to me, and the only friend that I'll ever have. She means everything to me. She's my love; my heart. The one piece of me that makes me whole.

I realized my mistake just as Roserade did, who put on a wicked smile as she remembered what situation this was; I was her enemy, and she wanted to fight. She wanted to hurt. I was to be defeated, and she was willing to do it in any way possible. Opening her mouth, I knew the words before she ever spoke them, though what came out of her mouth struck me like a bullet to the heart, regardless: _"She'll never love you."_

For a brief moment, my world stood still. The darkness stopped churning as my heart skipped a beat. Roserade must have sensed what affect her words had, as she continued to smile until her malicious grin stretched from ear to ear, sneering out into the darkness that seemed to have simply ceased to be. I knew what she was doing-striking me where my defenses were weakest; her words were meant to do me harm, hurt me, make me more susceptible to defeat, and knew that I couldn't give in to her-but the pain remained the same, no matter how much I tried to tell myself what was going on. The words echoed through my head repeatedly, spiking straight through me with every last sound: _She'll never love you. She'll never love you. She'll _never _love you. _As I began to try to reason with myself, I came to the startling conclusion that Roserade was right. Cresselia was a warm, loving spirit who spread joy and happiness wherever she went, healing wounds and erasing the scars that the terrors of night brought them. She loved, she healed, and she brought joy. She would always love the people that she healed and brought smiles to, because she knew they were good of heart, and that their intentions were pure. But take a look at me: a denizen of darkness. The incarnation of fear. One who feeds off of the misery and agony that I inflict upon other, laughing devilishly as they writhed in pain and fed my inner rancor with the misery it endlessly hungered for. I took joy out of watching my victims scream. I got _pleasure _out of their _pain. _My intentions were as foul as they could be; misunderstood and abused though I was, I had become the very thing that I hated others for labeling me. I had become the very demon that humans had created out of my image.

_How can Cresselia love me? _I asked myself. _How could Cresselia ever come to love a cold, twisted creature like me?_ The answer was cold, brutal, and simple: _she couldn't._

_She'll never love me._

At that moment, something within me snapped.

The darkness that had been tranquil and silent suddenly boiled and burned a bloody red, erupting like a volcano and evoking a terrified scream from the only other inhabitant of this suddenly cataclysmic oblivion. Seething with rage, I brought out every last horrifying thing I could come across and flung it at her, drowning her being with fear and smothering her soul with horror. But that wasn't enough; I now freely slashed at the terrifed pokemon, hacking pieces of her being clean off her and discarding it to the nothingness, savoring the taste of her being coming apart before my hand. The pain she felt was unspeakable; never before had I ever come unglued like this, and had I an eye to see with, I think I would have been seeing red. Her agony was...so..._delicious. _She was incredible-tasting. It was like I'd gone without food my entire life, then suddenly treated to the overwhelming sweetness of the plumpest, finest pecha berry in all of existence. The inner demon within me took in a mouthful of blood, and it wasn't about to stop. I needed _more. More _pain; _more _terror; _more! More, more, more!_

So frenzied was I, consuming the terrified being in my grasp, that it took me a while to realize that I had consumed every last bit of her that I could fit my being around. All that remained of Roserade's terrified mind were scraps and fragments of fear and sorrow, drifting in the nothingness like the scales that remained from a Sharpedo frenzy on a Magikarp school at sea. Nothing but blood, dust, and the echo of a scream that resounded off of every last piece of this endless oblivion before that, too, faded away, and I was left with nothing but the realization of what I'd done. It frightened me how uncontrollable my hunger for pain had become. Every last ounce of my being was screaming out in hunger, my inner rancor suddenly thrashing against the confines of my being and shrieking for more, more, more...it was frightening to see what had come unlocked.

Perhaps even more frightening was that I didn't care.

I exploded from the darkness like a beast straight out of Hell, prying myself out of Roserade's silent, empty mind and flinging my being into physical reality, unleashing a Shadow Ball the very instant I gain awareness. The Breloom and Machoke that had been leaning over her body were sent flying backwards, a burst of black energy exploding between them. The Floatzel and Empoleon, along with their respective trainers gave a collective cry of surprise from my sudden entrance, snapping around from whatever they were doing to face me. There were two new arrivals to the scene, both of whom I remembered from Roserade's memories: a Heracross and Staraptor, the latter of whom was airborne. The logical part of me knew there would be more of a fight now, especially after they saw what I'd done to their comrade, but the demon that had been unleashed couldn't be more delighted. The more pokemon they sent out meant more terror, which meant more energy for me. _More _terror. _More _fear! More! _More!_

Before the trainers could even an order, I slammed head-on into the Staraptor, which had the misfortune of being directly above me when I shot out of Roserade. The pokemon was taken by surprise, not putting up a fight as I grabbed it by the neck, angled us down, and shot towards the ground, flying as fast as I could straight downward like a bullet. The Staraptor finally managed a distressed caw and reached up with its talons to pry me off it, but it was too late; just as abruptly as I started did I stop in mid-air, letting go of the pokemon to send it down the rest of the way to the ground, which was only a few meters of so. The Predator Pokemon barely had time to flap its wings before it slammed into the ground head-first, giving off a sharp _crack _as it hit the ground. Every muscle in its body simultaneously cramped tight for an instant before it went limp, legs dangling down at an awkward angle. It didn't move an inch.

Barry snapped out of his stupor to cry "Staraptor!", pointing the pokeball at his pokemon to return it. The red laser lanced out of the ball's central button and collided with the staraptor's still form, paused, then shot back to the ball as if it had been struck. Barry blinked in surprise, trying again to recall his pokemon, but to no avail. The boy didn't seem to understand that his pokemon was dead.

Contrary to the "all brawn and no brain" theory I'd assumed was true, the Machoke was the first to put two and two together. It looked to the Staraptor, then to Roserade, who was staring blankly up at the sky with a vacant expression. She was completely awake, but because of my damage inflicted onto her, her mind was completely nonexistent. She was brain-dead. The Machoke suddenly snapped a glare at me, expression screaming of pain and disbelief. _"You bastard!" _it screamed, rushing in towards me as its fist glowed white as it prepared to fuse a Focus Punch with my head. It wouldn't have any such luck.

The Machoke swung its Focus punch, grunting in annoyance as I ducked down to the side, the white side of its hand grazing my cheek. I came around to its back, dodging to the side as it swung around to strike me, grabbing its arm, pulling it over my shoulder, and flipping the pokemon onto its back, smashing it into the ground and knocking the air out of it. Immediately it tried to curl up into a ball so as to hide its weak spots, but a Shadow Claw raking its shoulder threw it off, instead causing it to kick out and try to hit me. I merely hovered up higher to dodge before coming back down to plant a Shadow Punch into its gut. It doubled over and didn't retaliate, but I didn't stop there; I reared back and landed another black-fisted Shadow Punch, this one aimed in the region of its heart, planting another Shadow Punch there to follow up, then another, and another, and another... My arms were a blur of black and purple energy as Shadow Punch after Shadow Punch landed in rapid succession, planting the attacks as fast as I could bring my arms up and down again. Punch after punch found its mark, and by the time the Floatzel slammed into me with an Aqua Jet, the Superpower Pokemon was already long-since dead, blood freely leaking out of its mouth as it spasmed uncontrollably, the left half of its chest completely caved in, crushing its heart along with nearly all of its ribs and spine, hence why it twitched so insistently.

Even though the Floatzel and its Aqua Jet plowed me into a tree, I couldn't be happier; the fear radiating from the others now that three pokemon were out of the picture...delicious. It was making my mouth salivate; I hadn't felt this energized in _centuries! _

Shoving off of the tree, I tackled the Floatzel, which grabbed me and threw me back towards the tree, which I used to rebound off towards it and land a good Shadow Punch into its gut, staggering it and causing it to stumble backwards, doubled over. I fused into the shadows beneath the grass-the Sunny Day had long-since worn off from the battle, sparing me the pain of having my skin prickled by its accursed rays-in time to avoid a Megahorn attack, the Heracross digging its horn deep into the trunk of the tree behind me. It cursed rapidly in frustration as it realized it was stuck, sticking out of the trunk at a 180 degree angle with its horn buried up to the top of its head into the wood. The Floatzel scanned the ground rapidly with panic-stricken eyes, turning to face the noise behind it in time to have a Night Slash rake across its neck. Blood spewed out of the wound and splashed my front, its eyes widening as it let out a silent scream and stumbled backwards, desperately trying to breathe in the air that refused to enter its lungs. It was dead in moments, paws still at its red-soaked throat.

I turned to face the Breloom that howled in rage, becoming a blur as it launched a Mach Punch in my direction. I couldn't dodge it, I knew, so I didn't even try, instead creating the beginning of a Shadow Ball that splashed out crackling purple-black energy across the Breloom's front as it plowed into me. The punch hurt like something awful, sending me sailing back a bit, but the fear and grief radiating off of it alone was enough to rejuvenate me, hence why I sneered and rushed towards it, another Shadow Ball building up in my arms. It swung at me an instant before I fused to the shadows, coming up behind it and thrusting the ball of dark energy into its back, knocking it onto its chest. I stayed out of range of its swinging tail enough to pump a Dark Pulse into its still exposed back, hitting it hard enough for the crackling black electricity to race up its spine and distribute the damage all along its spinal column, some of which leaked into its brain. It spasmed violently, gasping some gurgled comment as blood spurted out of its mouth, just before I pumped another Dark Pulse into its back, which broke its back completely. The force of the blow was so powerful that a hole was burned straight through the Mushroom Pokemon's back, charring the earth beneath it a smoldering black from the foul aura.

The Heracross still stuck in the tree screamed in anger and grief, both of which pleased me greatly and made my inner rancor squirm in delight. I rewarded its treating me to its torment in the form of a powerful Shadow Ball into its side, which hit it hard enough to snap its horn clean off and sent the screaming, pain-stricken pokemon sailing, blood spurting out of the hole in the top of its skull. I placed my palm on its face, covering its mouth briefly to muffle the screaming, before pumping a Dark Pulse into its face point-blank. When its body hit the ground, there was a massive chunk missing clean out of its head burned black and seared shut at the edges, roughly in the size of my hand.

The only remainders of the battle - an Empoleon looking like it was in shock and a pair of wide-eyed, pale-faced teenage humans-stared at me in awe and horror, eyes drifting over the shattered, broken forms of their now lifeless comrades and partners. It took a moment, but after a while, the pain and fear that poured from them, spawned in even greater amounts from their angsty screams and moans, filled me with a twisted sense of joy. How wonderful it was for my enemies to squirm at the sight of their failed companions, realizing that they were fools to come and challenge me. What sick, grotesque delight I took in their agony. The demon unleashed from within me was on cloud 9, basking in the grief of my victims greedily, like a warlord in the blood of his enemies. Speaking of blood, the hot splatter across my front had a peculiar, almost _therapeutic _quality to it. Briefly I imagined what it would be like to be completely submerged in said liquid, soaking in it as though it was rose-scented mineral water in a sauna...

Barry shook his head in disbelief, the gravity of the situation finally clicking in as he looked over all the dead pokemon he'd worked so closely by these last few...it had to be years. He'd grown so closely to them all, and now...they were all dead, all on his watch. His face completely drained of color as he took a step back, eying me with a look that positively _reeked _of terror. "We gotta get the fuck out of here!" he blurted, now rapidly backpedaling away from this macabre scene.

Kenny nodded numbly, now without any remaining pokemon on the field. He waved over the remaining Empoleon, coaxing it to follow. "E-E-Empoleon! L-let's go!"

The Emperor Pokemon didn't respond, eyes locked on me as I hovered towards it, eyes glazed over in grief that I could feel a mile away. The pokemon was likely in a state akin to shock, not moving an inch, staring blankly at me as I hovered in close enough to touch it. It didn't move at all as I reached back and prepared a Shadow Punch into its face. The pokemon opened its beak to either scream or say something just before my fist made contact, my hand somehow fitting perfectly into its open mouth and down its throat slightly. It gagged at the object lodged down its throat, and my face lit up in sadistic delight and amusement just before I unleashed a Dark Pulse from said hand, funneling the attack straight down into the pokemon's gullet. Its stomach appeared to bulge and suddenly collapse downward, bloating an instant before the attack exploded out its backside, creating a massive hole in its body large enough for me to fit into, the edges burned black and smoldering from the sheer intensity of the blast.

Barry grabbed his bangs at the sight of his precious starter pokemon crumple to the ground, dead before it even touched the earth, hot tears of grief streaming down his face. "No!" he screamed, shaking his head wildly, yanking on his hair as if trying to tear it out. "No, no, no! _No!"_

In response to his insistent babbling and denial, I simply retorted _"Yes!" _and laughed in dark delight. Both humans were now standing a dozen meters away, neither willing to believe what they were seeing, disbelief apparently causing the concept of escape to slip their minds. It would be a costly mistake; I grinned and primed a Shadow Ball, ready to thrust it towards them and end this-

_"Darkrai!"_

My blood ran cold at the sound of that shrill scream, nearly losing my hold on the Shadow Ball I'd been building up; carefully diffusing the potent Ghost-type energy, I turned to face the source of the exclamation, heart skipping a beat. _"C...Cresselia..."_

The Lunar Swan I loved hovered nearby, her plumage and body not hosting any of the damage that I had remembered seeing so clearly a short while ago. She must have used Recover to heal herself after the poison had worn off. The look on her face was as clear as day: shock. Surprise. _Horror. _She was _horrified. _

Slowly, as if weighed down by the shock, Cresselia turned to examine the sights I had assembled for her: a headless Heracross, the horn its kind was so proud of embedded deep into a tree several meters away, only a jagged spoke of bone exposed out of the wood; a mangled Machoke with its chest caved in, its left arm sticking out at an awkward, unnatural angle from the size of the crater formed out of where its heart should be, blood trickling out of its mouth and soaking into the earth around it; a Breloom lying face-down on the ground, a hole in its back clearly exposing its scalded and fracture spinal column and the black-charred ground beneath it, still smoldering a sinister black; a once-proud Staraptor sitting upside down, its head dug into the earth slightly, beak pointed down at a 45 degree angle, neck shattered in countless places; a Floatzel with its paws resting on its slit throat, red staining its paws, its entire front, and my own chest; an Empoleon laying in a crumpled heap, a smoldering black hole stretching from its open mouth all the way down to its hips, the blast having punched a massive chunk of its back out on the exit; a Roserade breathing weakly on its back, staring up blankly into the sky with hollowed eyes...she was hurt by this sight the most, as it was very unlikely that even _she _could fully heal a pokemon in such a state. I winced at the pain that emanated from her, making sure not to ingest any of it and fuel my now quelled rancor. There was no pleasure to be taken from her pain.

Shaking her now pale head, Cresselia turned to face me, eyes glimmering in condemnation and...sorrow? Pity? Grief? All of these? It was so hard to tell. _"Darkrai," _she said softly, voice barely above a hoarse whisper, _"what have you _done?"

I shook my head at her weakly, trying to come up with some kind of logical explanation, my mouth working dryly as I vied for words to form. Nothing came. Try as I may to justify my actions, no words would come. Instantly I felt ashamed and mortified at my actions, her...beautiful, expressive eyes...instantly sobering the demon that had been drunk on blood and angst all this time. It left behind only me, shamefully hiding in the corner of my mind to let me take the full weight of the situation for which I couldn't explain myself. What was I supposed to say? What was there even _for _me to say?

Movement caught my eye; I glanced over to see Barry having collapsed to his knees, still gripping his head, staring in horror at what had become of his pokemon, tears streaming freely down his face, feeding small waterfalls that spilled onto the ground...Kenny stood nearby, eyes locked on me, frozen in fear and confusion, unsure of what to do...guilt turned to anger in a heartbeat. Why did they have to come here? Why did they try to capture me? Why did they hurt Cresselia? Why did they have to be here? If they didn't come, they wouldn't have had to experience what they were now. None of this would have happened if they hadn't come.

Cresselia must have felt the change in my demeanor, for she tensed. _"Darkrai," _she half begged, half warned. _"Don't do it. They're just children, Darkrai...innocent, foolish children. They didn't mean any harm. Please...don't hurt them. I beg of you. Please..."_

_Oh, _Cresselia...sweet, caring Cresselia. Always thinking of others and their well-being before even her own. Never once did she consider the wrong these insolent wretches had inflicted on us. How dare they come to her island, her _home, _and try to capture _her? _How dare they threaten not just her but _me _with a life of enslavement, bound to those accursed pokeballs and forced to fight battle after arduous battle in the name of their own petty fame amongst their own kind, who were too absorbed in their own worthless lives to take any interest in theirs? How dare they. How _dare _they. They had to be punished; they needed to be taught a lesson for their insolence.

But did they really? Cresselia had a point; they were youths, and like all youths, they were clouded by their own dreams, the very aspirations driving them forward obscuring the path they needed to take to get there. They made a mistake, as do we all. They'd lost enough; hadn't they learned their lesson already? Who was I to judge them for their near-sightedness? Not just that, but Cresselia...she told me not to hurt them. She said it before; she said not to do them harm, a request that I so blatantly ignored. I hadn't laid a hand on them, but the emotional scars from this traumatic day would likely follow them for the rest of their lives, likely even after her best efforts to heal them. I had already wronged them as much as I possibly could. The Darkrai she knew wouldn't do this; the Darkrai that loved her wouldn't commit such a sin. What happened to that Darkrai? Where was he now? What had he become?

I hovered there for the longest time, completely unmoving, fists unconsciously clenching as my eye bored into them, repeatedly looking between the humans in question. They were young, blind...but did that excuse them? Could they elude my wrath so easily? Was Cresselia's word here worth the consideration to stay my hand, or was her overly selfless attitude clouding her judgment? I sat there in silence, staring the two humans down, an internal war between my heart and the demon that had been awoken within me raging through my soul. The battle was intense.

In the end, I guess the demon won.

The sound of a Night Slash generating on my arm caused Cresselia to jerk slightly, breath hitching as she saw the murderous look in my eye. _"Darkrai..."_

I didn't respond, eye locked solely on the humans that had wronged us...specifically, the one having collapsed to his knees, blonde hair tussled from his having grabbed it, tears running down from his red-tinged eyes, green scarf draped mournfully down his chest. Rage began to build within me. How _dare _he come here and try to enslave us. How _dare _he threaten to take away my Cresselia. How _dare _he! He had to be silenced; be made an example of! Let humanity remember what it means to wrong the lord of the night, the denizen of nightmares! _Let all humans know of the foolishness to cross Darkrai!_

I lunged forward; Cresselia screamed my name, which I ignored. None of that mattered now; not my love, not my name, nothing. All that mattered was me, the trainer Barry, and the glistening purple energy shimmering on my arm. He would pay. He would _pay._

There was a blur of motion, and I swung my arm, the Night Slash cutting through flesh and bone alike. Blood sprayed up, splashing across my face. Something heavy hit the ground. I could feel the death begin to form as the life of my victim seeped away.

But it wasn't Barry's.

The human in question remained where he stood, fallen to his knees, eyes wide and staring at me with the utmost fear, completely motionless with said emotion. There isn't a scratch across his entire body from even an insect bite, let alone a wound with severity comparable to that of a Night Slash. _But then, _I thought, feeling a sense of dread hit my stomach like a lead weight, _who did I hit? _Suddenly aware of the way my heart blasted through my skull, I slowly, fearfully, turned my head to the body that had leaped in front of me to shield the human from the blow.

A wonderful move, Night Slash. It made a nice combination of power, speed, and efficiency, hence why it was one of my favorite and most commonly-used physical attacks. That and Shadow Claw, but because of its move-type, Night Slash fit in better with me, making it my most powerful up-close and personal move available. A combination of my type, its high critical hit ratio, and considerable power made it a pretty nice finisher for most situations, and its ability to slice clean through even bone and natural armor made it a very nice choice in any situation, given its cutting power. Combined with the type advantage, the power-up from my genetics classified as "Dark-type," the power with which I struck, its cutting potential, not to mention the doubled power of the critical hit...when I looked over to see what I hit, all things considered, I guess it wasn't a surprise to see that I had nearly sheered her in half.

_Cresselia._

I could scarcely breathe, let alone move in to investigate, the feeling of blood on my hand and face suddenly an appalling, unwelcome one. I wanted to look away more than anything in the world, but a combination of shock and dread kept my eye locked on Cresselia's still form, unable to look away.

The power of my Night Slash, though in this case horrible, was to be admired; all the way to the other side across Cresselia's flank did my claws tear through, slicing through her delicate plumage, flesh, and bone like she was made of tissue paper, the only thing keeping her from splitting into two separate halves entirely being a feathery strand of flesh along the curve of her back above her severed spine. Her organs were clearly exposed, her upper half having been pulled away from the lower half by her colliding to the ground, her blood and bowels now freely spilling out across the ground, a red river mournfully flowing down the slight incline. It was evident that she was dead-honestly, well and truly dead-but her eyes seemed to focus on me, the traces of sorrow and pain forever frozen onto her face showing the feelings of betrayal that she had been experiencing. It was as though she was staring right at me, wondering "why?" up until her very last moment. As though she'd been looking right at me until the end.

The situation hit me like a ton of bricks propelled by an Ice Beam: Cresselia was dead. _And her blood was on my hands._

My heart hammered like a Ledian's Comet Punch; I was surprised that it hadn't stopped completely, blood racing through my veins harshly enough to threaten cardiac arrest. Hot liquid streamed freely down my face from my eye, mouth agape, unable to move, unable to speak...my throat burned like I had swallowed a Qwilfish. Blood pounded in my ears, causing my head to throb with every heartbeat that thrashed through me. It took me a while to realize that I was screaming, unable to stop, unable to properly express my grievous realization. I killed Cresselia. I murdered her. I struck, and she received the blow. I killed her. I _killed _her. _I murdered the love of my life._

As soon as I could summon up coherent thought, my first question was..._why? _Why did this have to happen? My Cresselia...sweet, loving Cresselia...why? Why did she have to die? My precious...my _life..._my only reason for living... _Why, Cresselia? Why did you have to die on me? Why did I have to kill you? I just wanted to tell you how I felt...that I loved you. I loved you, Cresselia, I truly did. I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know that I loved you. I wanted us to be happy, Cresselia; I wanted for us to be together, to be happy. It's all I ever wanted, Cresselia. I wanted to love you. Why? Why does it have to end like this? Why do you have to be slain by my hand? Why did you shield that human? Why-_

That human.

My blood stilled for the briefest of instants...just before it began to boil. My face contorted in rage, fists clenching hard enough for my fingertips to dig into my flesh and draw droplets of blood. _Him. _It was _his _fault. She was dead because of _him. He _did this. If _he_ hadn't come here, none of this would have happened. If _he _hadn't made me into this monster, Cresselia wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself to save him from me. It was all _his _fault that this happened. It was all _HIS_ fault. _HE _made me into this. _HE_ did this to me; to Cresselia! _HE_ did this! It's _HIS_ fault! _HIM! HE _did this! Not me, _HIM! _This was all _HIS_ fault!

I turned to face the bastard that did this to me, my eye burning a hole through his head with the pure heat of my hatred. That disgusting little Wurple...he did this. He was the one responsible. _He was responsible for Cresselia's death._

Realizing that I was staring directly at him, Barry's heart ignited with fear, suddenly aware of how much danger he was in. He rose to his feet, ready to run for his life, when my eye blazed an infinite, icy blue, pumping a Mean Look directly into his being. Catching the full force of the move, Barry completely froze, suspended in place as if by magic, eyes wide and fearful as they stared into mine, unable to pry himself away from my glare. Oh, how I wished looks could kill; he'd be dead a thousand times over, if this were the case.

I would have loved nothing more than to pump every last Dark Pulse into that little wretch's head as I could until he vaporized completely, something stayed my hand; the rancor was reignited, the demon within me springing back to life as it realized what terrible things could become of this. The boy deserved to die...no. No, he didn't. He didn't deserve to end so suddenly. He didn't deserve the cold embrace of death. He deserved to suffer. _He should suffer for what he's done._

Slowly raising my hand to the terrified boy's face, I reached over, clutched his head in my hand and, restraining the urge to squeeze his skull between my fingers, I closed my eye and channeled energy through my being, becoming a Dark Void before vanishing into his head. He deserved the cruelest, coldest nightmare I could conjure up, but something gave me a better idea. Rather than taking his fear-stricken mind and dragging it down with my into the abyss, I did something I hadn't before: I grabbed him, shoved him aside, and _replaced him, _making sure that little bastard could bear witness to everything that was about to happen. I had a feeling of what this would result in...and I wanted him to see as much as I did myself.

Barry's eyes opened. He was on the ground now on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, trying to be rid of the foul taste that spread through his being like the plague. He shook his head to clear it, vision blurring, blinking a few times to clear the fog that shrouded his world. He pushed up off the ground to stand upright, shaking his head again to clear it. Everything felt so...strange...like he was detached; distanced from the world around him. It was...just so...strange. What did that thing do to him?

Barry turned to face Kenny, who looked just as confused as he felt. He couldn't really blame him; neither of them had any idea what was going on. First they tried to get Cresselia, then Darkrai came, then it...went crazy, and...now, their pokemon...Cresselia...what the fuck was going on?

As if reading his thoughts, Kenny shook his head, face as starch white as a Togepi's shell. He looked over to the broken, shattered forms of their pokemon... "Arceus," he muttered. "I...I-I can't...believe it..."

Barry wanted to say something - anything, even if it was wrong - but try as he may, he couldn't do it. He couldn't get his mouth to work, or for the words to form in his throat. That was strange...he couldn't even turn to look at the pokemon. He could only stand there and stare at Kenny...wait, why was he smiling? There was nothing to smile about at a time like this!

Kenny just shook his head again, turning to look back at Barry. "Alright, well...I guess we need to get back to Canalave City and call the..." He stopped, tilting his head quizzically. "...are you okay, dude? You seem kinda...funny."

Barry tried to say "No, I'm fine," but the words wouldn't come. No noise came from him, and his mouth refused to function. What was this? Why couldn't he move?

Kenny was a bit unnerved by Barry's silence, that smile starting to really creep him out. Something didn't seem right about this. "...dude, you don't look so good. Are you alright? You feel funny? Here, why don't you sit down..." Kenny reached out to put a hand on his shoulder-

Barry was just as surprised as Kenny when his arm suddenly shot up and slammed around Kenny's throat, clamping his windpipe shut. Barry tried to yelp in alarm, release Kenny, ask what the fuck was wrong with him, but he couldn't do it. Something was wrong: he couldn't control his body. Something was keeping him from doing anything. Something was forcing him from doing what he wanted. Something was controlling him. Something-

_Darkrai, _he realized, summoning my dark, throaty chuckled from somewhere behind him in his mind. _It's Darkrai. This is his doing. I'm not in control here. He's in my head!_

_So true, _I told him coolly, causing his mind to quiver in fear. _Except it's _my _head now._

Kenny's eyes widened in surprise when he saw his friend grin wider, revealing his pearly white teeth from within his head. Two and two seemed to fit together in his head, because he began to act accordingly, gripping Barry's hand in an effort to free himself. "Fight it," he gagged, scarcely able to form the words. "F-fight, m...man...don't...l-let it...t it do this...!"

"Too late," the boy gripping his throat sneered, voice boiling with darkness and satanic delight that didn't belong to him. "I've already won."

Kenny choked out something I didn't care to decipher, far too pleased with Barry's begging to pay any heed to his companion's discomfort. _Please don't! No, no! Don't hurt him! Please! I-I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry! I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, just don't do this! Don't kill him! Please!_

_Kill him? _I thought in mock-surprise. _Why, whatever gave you that idea? Now that you mentioned it, though, I think I'll do just that. Thank you for the suggestion, dear boy._

Barry continued to babble, begging for his friend's life, but his pleas fell on deaf ears, my only response being the raising of his free hand. There, Barry and Kenny stared in awe and dread as the pale skin of Barry's arm appeared to shudder, the image of his pale flesh turning to a cloud of dust that peeled away to reveal cold, dark flesh, a three-fingered hand-_my _hand-angled over to face him, claws flashing a ghastly purple. Both he and Barry could only watch in horror as I brought my arm back, clenched my fingers together, and plunged a Shadow Claw directly into Kenny's chest. There was a spurt of blood backed by Kenny's gagging as Barry silently screamed _"No!", _both of which caused me to beam in dark delight as I wriggled my fingers slightly, the cold sensation of air on my wet skin suggesting that my attack had come out through his back, my movements only making him gurgle on his own blood. I forcibly ripped my claws out of his chest, grinning at the feeling of something snapping as I did so, the red beginning to leak out of the boy's mouth splurging out, dampening Barry's shirt and turning a patch on his scarf a sickly brown from the green and moist red. Pleased by his sickening gags and Barry's screams to stop, I grinned even further and brought Kenny in close to me and stared into his face, locking eyes with him watching as the pain and fear spiraled around in his head, forcing Barry to watch right along with me. Still gripping his throat, I gazed into his being, only continuing to grin as the life in his eyes began to dim, blood loss and physical trauma taking its toll.

Kenny died right there in my grip, and I made Barry watch the entire time.

When his body went limp, head tilting lifelessly to the side, staring blankly off to the side, Barry's screams reached a whole new octave of pain and grief. _You bastard! _he howled. _Y-you...murdering...demon! Fucking demon! You killed him! You killed him!_

I ignored his petty insults and obvious accusations, using my arm's strength the fling Kenny's lifeless body off to the side to lay with his fallen pokemon. Instead of responding, I reached into his conscience and began to flip through his mind, going through his memories and knowledge, intruding him to the fullest extent. Through my violating, I learned that he, too, had a family: a mother, as well as a father named Palmer, whom he greatly admired. That could have some use later on...alongside Palmer was a boy named Paul, who he had come to view as a bit of a role model in being a trainer, and envied quite a bit for his strength...he wanted to meet him some time. I might just grant that wish. Farther back, I found his knowing of two boys, Ash and Brock, who he had come to like a bit...plus a girl named Dawn, whom he knew from his childhood alongside Kenny. He had feelings of guilt for forgetting her name, as well as mild infatuation and a hesitant, wishy-washy need to see her again and make up for hurting her feelings...hmm. How very intriguing. Perhaps they _would _get a chance to meet again, though the reunion would be anything but happy...

Sensing my withdrawal from his conscience, Barry watched through my eyes as my blood-slick arm vanished, replaced by the image of his own pale, skinny arm, and gulped in fear as I began walking, a weight of dread landing somewhere within his formless body. _W-w...where are you taking me?_

I flicked back in his mind for a moment, then returned to him. _The shore, _I informed him, referring to the boat that he and Kenny had taken to get here. _We're going to Canalave City...and then we're going to make a few phone calls. You're going to see your friends again._

_M-my friends? Wh...why... _Realization hit him like a ton of bricks, renewing his fear and abhorrence, frantically trying to keep me away. _N-no, no, no! Don't do this! Please, I-I'm begging! D-don't'...d-don't hurt them... _Knowing his pleas were useless, Barry receded slightly, curling into a ball in a cognitive corner and started hysterically sobbing, his wailing moans filled with dreadful knowing that the very worst was about to befall him. He was completely at my mercy, and I wanted to make him suffer. So suffer he would.

In the course of the next few days, the trainer Barry was going to become the single most miserable human being alive...and I was going to enjoy every last moment of it.

* * *

_**AN:**_

There we go; one angst-ridden horror story, edited up and set to go. I added a few finishing touches to it, mostly just some capitalizations and spelling-corrections, plus that annoying thing with the -'s. So, now that it's all shiny-like, I'll leave it for people who like gory yumyums to nom all up. Tata~! x3


	2. Angst and Heartache

_**Angst and Heartache**_

* * *

_Something's not right._

It was obvious early on that something had happened to me - I was…thinking differently. My reaction was off, and somehow, somewhere, something in me had…changed. I'd never felt such…_glee _before. I was heartbroken - I had to be. It had to be so - I just killed Cresselia. My love…my only friend. I wanted us to be closer, and it would have been so…if this fool and his "precious pokemon," as he kept rambling, hadn't blundered into a territory they had no right to be treading on. The knew they were trespassing - they were armed, ready for a fight, and knew that they were going to need to defend themselves. They brought their arcane tools of enslavement - their "pokeballs," their scanning equipment…all of the things they would need to snag a pokemon, and the target couldn't be clearer: Cresselia. They were after Cresselia. They found her, and she died…oh Cresselia…why did you do what you did? I know you love all things, and that your heart is even larger than your cunning and wit, but…why? Why them? Why after what they did - after what they threatened to do? They would have enslaved you, Cresselia - bound you to them against your will and forced you into fighting for spectacle. They would have ruined you, Cresselia - they would have broken your will. Stolen your freedom. Yet, after all that, after seeing their foul intentions first-hand, you threw yourself in front of them to spare them…why? Why did you have to save them? Why couldn't you just let them die - let my inner beast feed? Why did you have to put your blood on my hands?

Why did this have to be this way?

The answer, dear friends, is obvious: _him. He _is why it had to be this way. _He _was the one that started this. _He _pushed me past my limits…unleashed my rancor. _He _unleashed the monster within me. It's _his _fault. Cresselia is dead because of _him._ _He _did this to me.

And now _he _is going to pay.

The love of my life was dead - slain by my own hand, inadvertent though it was; it doesn't make a difference whether I meant to or not. She was dead, was always going to be dead, and nothing I could do was going to change that. I was alone in the beginning, and now, as in my past, I was to be alone - horribly, dreadfully, alone. There would be no one left to consul me in times of sorrow - which were many, because of my dreary purpose. When I became weary of the darkness and sank into depression like I often did, no one would be there to perk up my chin and tell me to cheer up. There would be no more conversations at night - no more pleasant dreams, no more thoughts of tomorrow to look forward to, no more companionship when I needed it the most. I was alone. Alone now, and alone always.

Yet, for some odd reason, I couldn't help but feel…_happy._

It was an odd sort of happiness - a smile when one was hardly appropriate like when someone had a broken arm and you couldn't help but just stand there and smile - and I knew that, intellectually, something was wrong. I shouldn't be happy; I should be broken. Was this not what lovers did when they lost the only one that they cared about? They wept - grieved for weeks, months, years at a time, trying to find inner peace and the strength to move on. I should have been horribly sad; perhaps irreversibly so. But no - I had lost everything that had value in my life, and even after that, I…was fine with it. I actually wanted to smile. There was this nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to laugh, but it was easily resisted. Maybe this was a good thing - smiling and finding myself at the placid state I was in was disturbing enough; if I started to laugh, it would have been painfully obvious I had gone insane.

Maybe that was it. Maybe I had lost my mind. Why else would I be so calm? This wasn't shock, or some kind of natural reaction to such a tragedy - something was off here. There was something almost incomplete about how this incident had affected me. Why wasn't I sad? Why wasn't I grieving? Hell, how had I kept myself together enough to manage rational thinking? Why wasn't I feeling what I was supposed to?

I guess, in the end, it doesn't really matter how I felt or if I'd gone insane or not - my rancor was hungry, and whether I was happy or sad, I thirsted for vengeance. At least this way, I wouldn't be quite as inclined to back out. Barry's horror pleased me in a way nothing else could…sadistic, perhaps, but that didn't matter. Besides - even if I hadn't lost my mind, I was still a monster, remember? That's what people decided I was: an evil, twisted monster that got a sick thrill out of watching people writhe in agony. That's what Arceus designed me to do, after all: be a monster. It was my duty to cause pain - it was all I knew how to do.

Maybe I hadn't lost my mind at all; maybe I just finally decided that I liked my job.

I was plenty eager to get to work, but my appearance had a few flaws. For one, there was the blood - pokemon training could, apparently, get a little rough, but when blood started spilling and appearing on peoples' clothes, everyone that saw would know something was off. That wasn't right - I couldn't have that. In a way, this was just a big roleplaying game - I was Barry, and in order to get the part right, I had to look, act, and be just like Barry. The latter two wouldn't be that much of a problem, since I could "download" his habits and tendencies directly into my conscience, but the appearance-half of the equation was something I had to do manually. The scarf was completely ruined - there was red all over it. Couldn't have that; it would hardly seem fashionable to have his best friend's blood all over him. So, the scarf had to go - one flick of the wrist, and off into the ocean it went. Barry didn't seem to like that very much…apparently he was quite fond of it. That made disposing of it that much better of an idea.

Next: the problem with the arm. Since I'd brought mine out to deliver the kill to dear old Kenny, the appearance of Barry now seemed a bit…well…it was more than conspicuous. How many kids do you see walking down the street with one arm that didn't belong to their body? I was no expert on human customs, but I had a feeling it would be fairly noticeable, so that had to go, too. I wasn't about to take it off and toss it into the ocean like the scarf, though; instead, I focused my mind on my own physical being, which had extended quite a bit in order to fill in the part necessary that I had told it to. Now that its purpose was fulfilled, I took the part of my being that had extended out and worked on drawing it back in, channeling it back into the main stockpile I had devoted the rest of myself to, leaving Barry's appearance completely normal and unaltered. I leaned Barry - technically, "me"- over to peer into the water after I had finished, just to make sure I had the part right. From what I could tell, it was all perfect - not a flaw or pokemon trait to be seen anywhere. Apart from the black, burned edges of the sleeve that had come into contact with my skin as my energy channeled through it, there was nothing out of the ordinary to be observed.

The mind was in check, the body in tow, and my appearance was impregnable. I was in complete control. In a way, I had just become Barry Palmer. If that was the case…then it was time to make "me" a very, very unhappy boy.

_Time to get to work._

* * *

One ring. Two rings. Three rings…ringing…ringing…geez, this was taking forever. Had I plugged in the right number? Barry didn't pull a fast one on me and somehow swap the information, did he? Ooh, that little bastard…already I had a nice little image in mind, specifically the one that I saved for Roserade…you know - the one where Breloom's face was melting right off of his skull. Mmm…barbeque. A little well-done for my tastes, but definitely appetizing. Hehe…perhaps I ought to see what dear Barry thought. After all, I hadn't gone through his memory that far yet, so I wouldn't know how he liked his pokemon: deep-fried, or extra crispy. Hehehe…maybe just burned alive would be nice…

"Hello?"

Barry's eyes snapped into focus as I came out of my thoughts, focusing in on the image of the woman gazing back at me from the other end of the monitor. It was a bit late, and from her shoulders I could see the beginnings of an outfit that, according to Barry's databank of a brain, connected to the rest of her favorite night outfit. Weird humans…it never did plug in exactly right why they insisted on swapping articles of clothing so often throughout the day, or why they so consciously covered themselves. Look around - pokemon didn't do that. They weren't ashamed about how they looked. Given that humans were spineless, heartless little fucks, it made sense that they'd want to hide - if I was one of those things, I'd want to hide myself from the rest of the world, too. Or find a nice cliff to hurl myself off of - good Arceus, if I ended up as one of those bastards, I'd just off and kill myself right then and there. No way I could exist as one of those _things._

The woman on the other end of the screen, whom Barry instantly recognized as "mom", leaned in a little more towards the screen, peering up over the rim of her glasses, eyes widening in surprise. "…Barry? Is that you?"

At this point, the actually Barry started to ramble and babble anew - all in his head, of course; he wasn't in the driver's seat anymore - but on the outside, he looked completely calm and stoic, a little smile crawling up on his lips - a touch I added just to make the effect genuine. "Hey, mom," he said unevenly, voice cracking slightly, as though it hadn't been used in a while - in truth, I was still having trouble getting the tone to come out just right; it was actually me talking, and for some reason, his body wanted to react so that his voice came out like mine, who was technically the owner of the body. But that wouldn't work - she wouldn't recognize someone's voice other than Barry's. I had to get it right, hence my adjustments. Geez…had this kid gone through puberty yet? His tone was…annoying. Then again, just about everything about him I found repulsive, so it might have sounded fine. He only caused my lover's death, after all; my opinion of him was…slightly biased. To say the least.

Barry's mother seemed quite suspicious - why was her son calling? He hardly ever did that. She leaned in a little more, apparently taking in "my" features with rapidly growing concern - the disheveled hair, red-tinged eyes from recent crying - hysterical and fearful thought it was - and the air that just seemed to radiate gloom about him made it seem like Barry simply wasn't himself. She couldn't have been more correct, but I doubt the actual truth dawned on her; all she could see was her son and that something was off here. Rather than horrified realization that her son was possessed, all that I could see in her eyes was nurturing concern and worry for someone she cared about. "What's wrong, honey? Are you okay?"

The funniest thing happened then: I opened "my" mouth to answer, but to my surprise, no words came out. What further surprised me was the flurry of emotions rising up off the back of my mind…something about what she said struck a chord somewhere. I don't really know what it was; maybe it was having someone genuinely concerned for what was technically me that touched me. Maybe it was the fact that, unlike Barry, I had never had a mother that would nurture and care for me, and that seeing someone that recognized me as their own flesh and blood moved me somehow. Maybe it resurfaced my longing for companionship and desire to be loved and cared for. It was a confusing feeling…but either way, it rendered me speechless. Barry's mother's quarry went unanswered, though I tried several times to fix that, but to no avail. I just…couldn't answer. The emotional mixture all but took my breath away.

Was this what it felt like to have a mother ask if I was okay?

Visibly troubled by "my" silence, Barry's mother frowned, scooting up a little closer in the chair she had set herself in beneath the screen. "…Barry. It's okay. You can talk to me. What's wrong, honey? Is everything going okay?"

I tried a little more to conjure up an answer, and for some reason, that word struck me funny…'Barry.' Who was 'Barry?' That wasn't my name…did she not recognize me? My own mother didn't-

I caught myself there, giving my mind a jostle to snap me out of it; _Get a grip, Darkrai. That's not your mother - you don't _have_ a mother. You're Barry now, remember? She sees Barry - not you, Barry. She's asking _Barry _if _he's _okay. She doesn't care about you. She doesn't even know you exist._

That didn't sit well with me, even though I knew it was true; why couldn't I have a mother? Didn't I deserve someone to be able to fall back to? What if _I _wanted some nurturing and attention, huh? What if _I _wanted to be cared for? Didn't _I _deserve to be loved, too?

Of course not - I was a monster. Monsters didn't get love.

Barry's continued silence didn't go to soothe his mother's worries, who visibly shifted, preparing to consul her son to the best of her abilities. Before she could, though, I opened Barry's mouth, forcing him to speak on my behest; I took the momentary pause to add the finishing touches to my voice to make it sound genuine. "I'm alright…I just, you know…wanted to talk to someone."

"Oh, okay," his mother replied, just as concerned as before - Barry didn't just ring someone up to "talk," and certainly not at this hour; by the time I had extracted the information on how to pilot a boat out of Barry's mind and done so, it was nearly midnight, on a human clock. She appeared to be thinking, gears all but visibly turning behind her light blue eyes…hmm. Barry must have gotten his eyes from Palmer, then…orange and blue hardly mixed. "It's a little late. Are you tired?"

I shook my - rather, Barry's - head, feeling my eyes cloud over slightly as I recalled my own experience. "No…I don't sleep well…too many nightmares." I had given up sleeping at all, as of late; the only times I ever left the conscious was when I collapsed - the flashy, color-extreme visions beat the haunting images in my head any day, even if I was anything but refreshed when I woke up. It was just something to satiate my body and keep me alive; nothing more.

Once more, my response only seemed to grow more concern from the woman watching me so intently; I could all but feel the worry radiating off of the screen itself, though this would be quite impossible, as she would have to be by me for me to feel it. "…well…how's your journey? Your pokemon…I haven't heard you chatting up about how so-and-so beat such-and-such or someone evolved…how's the adventure going? And Kenny, too."

I fought back the urge to smile, making sure that the only grin that came was on the inside, rather than on Barry's features; I couldn't let her know what had happened. Besides, a smile would throw things off with my reply. "They're gone," I replied quietly, eyes going downcast for effect. I kept it purposely vague so she could wonder and, consequently, get more worried. "It's just me now…"

Apparently that was the last straw: unable to take it anymore, Barry's mother let her worries voice freely: "Honey, I'm worried about you. Really. Please…if you need to talk, I'm always listening, honey. Do you want to come home? You can always stop by - you know I'm always glad to see you."

According to Barry's thoughts, this was just like her - someone seemed off, and she offered for him to come home until it blew over. She really missed him. He had always declined, of course, vouching to weather it out and keep the train rolling. Tonight, however, I had a different plan in mind. "…yeah…yeah, I think I want to come home. I wanna come home."

Pleasantly delighted though she was, there was no hiding the shock in her features as her eyebrows lifted. Barry actually…_agreed? _He'd never done that before - once he set his mind to something, come hell or high water, he always stayed the course and kept on going. He never wanted to go home because things were bad…then again, she'd never seen him like this before…maybe it was something big. It had to be, to reduce Barry to this. He seemed so…reserved…hardly himself. Something had to be wrong - once again, she would be right, but I highly doubted she had an inkling of what was really going on in her son's head. If she did, she never would have wanted him to come back to be in the same quarters as him. "Okay…it's okay, honey. It'll all be fine. I'll get dressed and have some things ready for you when you come home…are you nearby?"

I nodded, though it was Barry's head that lightly tipped up and down. "Canalave…I can be there quick, though." As an afterthought, I paused, then quietly added "I wanna come home."

Barry's mother smiled - an assuring gesture to what was clearly a rather troubled boy. "I know, honey…you can always come home. I'll always be here for you." She glanced off-screen, looking around at the house behind the monitor. "…I'll go get some things together. I'll be waiting, okay? Go ahead and take your time - no rush. I'll always wait for you, honey."

I couldn't help but glance downward, eyes searching for nothing in particular down at the base of the monitor connected to the Pokemon Center's floor. Such consideration…I'd never seen anything like it before. She truly cared for what was, at the moment, technically, me. I knew it wasn't for me personally, but…I wanted for it to be that way. Maybe, just for a while, I could pretend it really _was _me - that it was me, Darkrai, the one that she was talking to, and that my real name was Barry, and that I was human, and that I had a mother…someone back home that loved me. I wanted it to be true - to be real. Barry wasn't really available at the moment…maybe I could take his place. Just for a little while, though…I still had a plan that I needed to go through with. But in the mean time, why not try out this new experience? I'd never been human before - who knew? Maybe it would be something worthwhile.

"I'll see you soon, honey…I love you. Okay?"

That particular statement struck me the hardest, causing a spike to drive up into the region of what would be my chest - _I love you. _That phrase…I'd never heard it said out loud before. There were times, sure, that I'd practice declaring my love for Cresselia, referring back to past memory raids for information on how to do so, but I'd never heard anyone say it before. Not out of someone else's mouth, and certainly not directed at me. It wasn't actually me, but…she was saying it at the form I had occupied, and I was, technically, hearing it with ears that had become mine…that made it me she was talking to, right? She said she loved me, right? Right? She loved me…she said so. She said it. It had to be…I wanted it to be so. I wanted to so bad that, in my mind, I drowned out the fact that she wasn't saying it to me so I could live out this fantasy that I suddenly found myself thrust into. Like a fantasy, the words I never imagined leaving my lips did so, even if they weren't mine, and for the first time, I said what I had meant to say for so long now: "…I love you."

I don't know when the screen turned off. Maybe it was because the person on the other end did so. Hell, maybe it was because the room I was in had been teleported to another planet and that any minute now the air was going to decompress out into space and I would suffocate - for all it mattered, either could have been true, and I wouldn't have known it. When I finally realized that the conversation had ended, I felt something hot running down my face…hmm…was I bleeding? Maybe it short-circuited on me and I had glass cuts. I felt my face, dabbing at the wetness, pulling my hand back to observe my fingertips to find warm, clear liquid dotting the ends…was it…water? No, not quiet water…it was salty. Like…tears. Tears…that meant I was crying? When had I started crying? And why was I crying? This was all according to plan - this was all going how I wanted it to!

…maybe that was it. It really was going how I wanted to, and in more ways than one. My sinister plan could come into play now, and my goal of torturing Barry could come into effect…but, there was another something that was going how I wanted.

I told someone that I loved them. And they actually loved me back.

At the moment, all other thoughts drained from my mind - my inner demon was silent and morbidly still, solemn and silent in the back of my mind as I allowed myself to cry through the body of the one I had sworn to make miserable. I no longer wanted to avenge anyone's death, nor did I want to cause anyone else's. I didn't want to torture or feed off of misery and fear. I felt…loved. It wasn't me it was directed at, but…hell, it was technically me, so why not? I deserved some love. I wanted to feel the warmth of a mother beside me, tending to my angsts as though they were her own. I wanted to have a life beyond that of a void - a dark, cold, meaningless existence. I didn't want to be a void anymore. I didn't want to be alone.

It wasn't my body. If I went through with this little fantasy of mine, it wouldn't ever be the real thing - it would never be me that was being loved, nor would it be me feeling the warmth and the touches that would ensure. None of it would be real. But you know what? Maybe I didn't care. This was the closest thing to love that I had ever encountered in my entire miserable existence, and maybe I didn't care that it was all fake. Maybe I didn't care that I was lying to myself, pretending to be a boy with a life actually worth a damn. Maybe I wanted to feel the warmth, the touches, the care, the love…maybe I wanted to feel it. Even if it was all in my head, maybe I wanted to be loved like I always dreamed I would be.

Maybe I didn't want to be a monster. Maybe I just wanted to go home.

* * *

**A/N:**

-dramatic music- Welcome back from the dead, me! You know, this was such a good story, and I hated to see it just sitting here, and today at, like, 3 in the morning, I'm like "Hey, this needs work. Maybe I'll look at it." And so here we are! A drowsy me in an oddly fitting mindset for the story that was on hiatus for, like, ever. Finally, The Wrath of Darkrai is up and running again! Yay~! Let's all pretend this is worth something in life and I accomplished something~! -pretends-

Anywya. Here's the next chapter. It's a little shorter than I'd like, but I really wanted to get this up before...well...uh, I dunno. I just really wanted to get this up. I don't know if it's much good or not -I'm really sleepy and my judgement might be impared. Let me know how I did, neh? I would like to see...ohhh...a total of 10 reviews by the time I come back for a checkup later tomorrow. So how about that - four more reviews to make me a happy sponge. Let's all make the dude that decides who dies and feels what a happy sponge, neh~? XD

Alrighty, so: I'm off to bed and to wonder how I did and if I actually wrote this worth a fuck. Later, all. Hope you like death, cuz there's bound to be some in the next chapter. Hehehehe...ooh, yes, babay. The Librarian, and his thirst for bloody, gory violence, is back! D


	3. Recollection Of Intentions

_**Recollection of Intentions**_

* * *

_What the hell are you doing, Darkrai?_

Mmm…he'd been asking me that a good while now, Barry; ever since I got off the phone with his mother and started to walk to Twinleaf - cheating on the part where I had to cross water, of course; I turned the lower half of me back to normal before reverting back to Barry's form on the other side - he had been pestering me non-stop, "what are you doing? What are you doing?" over and over again, the only difference between any of them being what particular word he chose to cuss with…ugh. It was really starting to get rather irritable. I guess I could understand his need to know - the creature holding him captive was displaying some odd behavior, and he no longer knew what my intentions were.

He wasn't the only one.

That's right - at this point, I had no idea what I planned on doing when I got to Twinleaf. I had the destination set: I flipped Barry's mind open and scrolled through, finding the directions I needed, along with a few other memories immediately related to the thought in particular. He'd caught his Starly that later evolved into a Staraptor here…hmm… "Route 201," humans called this place. It wasn't much to look at; just a strip of wilderness traversable for people walking back and forth between the two settlements Twinleaf and Sandgem…hmm…I'd made it that far already? I must have been walking for a while…I must not have been paying attention. The whole time I was walking, passing by the familiar sites of Barry's memories of which I drew reference, my mind was wandering, thinking things that I couldn't quite recall later on…how long had I been doing this? Just walking with no sense of direction, somehow making my way to my destination? Better yet, what was I going to do when I made it to said destination? Was I going to do what I set out to in the first place? Was I going to kill Barry's mother, forcing him to watch the light fade from her eyes so I could watch him writhe in agony? Was I going to haul off and kill everyone? Was I going to curl up into a corner and suck my thumb for the next week? I had no idea.

Things didn't really make sense to me, at this point…I felt…strange. Longing. The need for companionship wasn't an unfamiliar one, but now, after everything I'd lost, the need had come back stronger than ever, and in a bizarre twist of fates, I was forcing a boy with a life to relinquish himself so that I may live, perhaps just a little while, the life that he once laid claim to. I got to go to his home, see it as my own, and have someone there that I could call "mom" and have her know who I was talking about. She looked at me, and she saw her son. She looked at me, and she loved me. _Me. _No…no, that wasn't quite right…I was Darkrai. But, at the same time, I was Barry. She looked at me, she saw Barry, and she loved me…or him? I don't know…maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe…

Aw, hell…what did I care what it really was or not? I didn't even care that it wasn't real or that I was deceiving myself, as well as someone else - I had someone willing to love me, and fuck if I was going to let that go. I just wouldn't think about it. She looked at _me, _cared about _me, _and that was as far as I would think. This was going to be my own little game…it would be a shame to spoil it.

_What the fuck are you doing, dammit?_

A familiar quarry from a no-less-annoying and equally familiar individual. How many times had he asked that, damn his persistence? Fine; he wanted an answer, so he'd get one. _I'm going home._

I could sense Barry's confusion, and he of course demanded what I meant by that, but I ignored him. Stupid idiot talked too much, even in his head. He was just as annoying in mind as he was in person.

Humans; worthless through and through. Especially as company.

Twinleaf Town was just as I - or rather, Barry; they were memories coming from my own head, and I was thinking them, so that technically made it me - remembered it: a sleepy little town nestled into a clearing in the trees near the base of Lake Verity, where innumerous memories of Barry's past originated; he'd gone there quite a bit as a child. Apparently he, Kenny, and a girl named Dawn were quite a tight-nit group, though the details surrounding the past they shared with the girl was less than clear. It seems that, somewhere along the line, they parted ways and he forgot about her. He just moved too fast to keep tabs on everyone he knew; if what he wanted didn't involve them, they weren't important. Selfish little ingrate. According to his memories, his house was…right there. Near the northern edge of the village by the entrance to Route 201; basically the first house on my left. Easy enough to find…now I just had to go in and pray that I could pass as someone else.

_Oh, don't worry so much, _I told myself, making sure a now especially-insistent Barry couldn't hear me. _You're in his body; that's all that people will really care about. No one in their right mind would think you're not actually him. Besides, what's the worse they can do? Banish you? Kill you? You aren't even human. If things get hot, you can just kill them all. You're in no danger here. If anything, it's _them _who's in danger._

And now there I stood, hovering outside of the doorway that led to "my" home, "my" mother on the other side, waiting for "my" arrival. The sun had risen a short while ago, casting a citrine glow over the landscape as the nip of the morning air started to fade away, every grass blade beneath my feet sprinkled with drops of dew. It seemed oddly serene and peaceful for it to be the site of the beginning of the being of darkness's plan for bloody revenge to unfold…then again, maybe that wasn't even why I was here. Maybe I was just going back home to the mother missed me and who I dearly needed. Consul of any kind, even if I had to lie to myself to make it real, would be a welcome opportunity; I didn't care how many laws of reason I had to warp or break entirely to make my delusion come true. I wanted to be loved, damn it all; who gave a fuck if it was real or not? I wanted to feel it - even if it was all just in my head.

Standing there silently, staring at the plain wooden door, I could all but feel the anticipation emanating from the other side - she was waiting for me. She knew I was there. Had she been awake, waiting for me all this time? I must have woken her up when I called…huh…so she was really dedicated, then…she really wanted to see me.

I ignored the little voice in my head that reminded me that it wasn't me she was waiting for, nor was it my mother. Such details were unnecessary and not needed, at this point.

Finally, I decided I had wasted enough time just standing there, staring like an idiot - I had to do this. The door wasn't going to open by itself, and I had nothing to worry about - everything would be fine, one way or the other. If it wasn't…hell, I could always kill the bitch. Any problems could always be solved, in that light. So, swallowing whatever doubt I had that stayed my hand, I raised said hand and, wearily, rapped my knuckles against the door.

Everything after that was a blur. It all seemed like a dream…I remember suddenly being overwhelmed with anxiety, tears, arms reaching out to grasp me…I must have lost control. That must have been it - I was so overcome by the emotions that I just…broke down. The light fragrance of flowers accompanying the arms that wrapped around me…no doubt that was Barry's mother, again thinking it was Barry, always so caring about the wellbeing of her sun…yes…that's right: her son. That was me. I was her son, and she was my mother. _I _was Barry, and she was _my _mother; she cared for _me. Me. _All this love and care was for _me _nobody else. All_ mine._

One way or another I winded up on the couch in the living room, sprawled out across the length of it on my back, my eyes stinging from recently shed tears, a wet spot next to either of my cheeks indicating where spare tears had rolled down and soaked into the fabric. I didn't remember getting here…no entirely, anyway. It all seemed so fast…one minute I was about to knock on the door, and the next…here I was.

Barry's mother sure didn't waste any time getting her son back into the house again.

I still wasn't sure why I wanted to play this game so badly. Logic would shoot down the idea as foolish and irrational, hence why I paid the element no heed - it would spoil everything. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish…to feel loved? To know what it was like to have a family that cared? Probably…my mind wasn't working in the best manner, I suspect. I was just so lonely…was it so wrong to want to have companionship? It was something that I would never get on my own, so in order to get it, I'd have to steal it through someone else's life. Barry was my puppet - everything that he was to feel, I received instead. He did his little song and dance, and I received the applause. Barry…ha. In the back of my mind in the cognitive corner was an entity that I had come to be familiar with, tense as could be, confusion and fear blatantly apparent. As he so politely informed me, he thought I had lost my fucking mind. He was confused, but even more so was he frightened - as a prisoner in his own skull, there was nothing he could do; his body was at the behest of a madman, and whatever I did would go on _his_ head. Any heinous, unspeakable deed - such as the one ending a dear friend of his - would not only perform front and center directly in front of him while he was unable to look away, but it would also be done by _him - _I was Barry now, and whatever I did, he did. If I killed someone, both our hands would be bloodied. If I was hurt, we both would cry out.

If I lost my mind, we would share the insanity.

"Barry," his mother called lightly from the kitchen, poking her head out around the corner. I had only seen her face in reality just now, but the way she was smiling, it felt like I had known her for years - like I really was her child. Her tone was gentle and assuring, as though the slightest hint of tension would rupture me like a plane of glass dealt a hammer blow. "Breakfast's ready, honey…would you like something to eat?"

Sitting upright to look at her, I couldn't hide a smile forming on Barry's lips; this was exactly how I wanted to feel: like I was loved and had a mother there beside me, ready to come to my aide at a moment's notice. She would tend to my wounds like they were her own and hear my troubles until she forgot hers entirely - to her, I was her world. She would love me forever and always. And I was her own flesh and blood. Something troubled me, and no matter what it took, she would be there to help me out of it. Mother always made everything better for her baby.

My new mother thought something was wrong with me. Barry thought I was insane.

"Yeah…thanks, mom."

And I wasn't about to argue with either of them.

* * *

I can only guess how much time I spent at that house in that town…a few days. A week, maybe more. I had never been very good at - or interested in - keeping track of time, and at my new home, my mother kept my days relaxed and at ease, yet warm and enjoyable at the same time. Everywhere I went, she met me with smiles, hugs, little phrases or acts of warmth and kindness that…completely undid me. For as long as I can remember - eons; I already mentioned I don't keep track of time - I've been alone. For as long as I've been alive, people only ever looked at me and, if they didn't shy away, then the only expression I saw was their curled lips and the glimmer of condemnation and hate in their eyes, as though my very existence was a crime beyond measure. I can't remember the last time someone waved to me and said hello, let alone wrap me into a hug and tell me everything would be alright. I had never felt the warmth of a mother, or been tucked in at night, or fed homemade food in the hopes that the secret ingredient would hit the spot just perfectly. I'd never had a home before.

This place had everything I had ever wished for, and so, so much more. I knew what love was…but until I felt it myself, I could never have known.

The first day, I spent most of my time laying down somewhere, staring at the ceiling, deep in thought; if I wasn't doing this, I was making idle chat or making meaningful talk with "my" mother, discussing this and that, my responses only occasionally delayed by my flipping through Barry's mind, who was now completely and totally convinced I had lost it. To hell with what he thought. Even if I had, this was more than I ever could have imagined. Let him rot in his own head, for all I cared.

It was like a dream. She rubbed my shoulder and occasionally embraced me when I got to emotional, reminding me over and over again that she was there and that everything would be alright; she made food that I couldn't hope to recreate to anywhere near a similar degree on my own, ranging all throughout the sweet pyramid from no-bake cookies in the fridge to a little cup of ice cream hidden away in the freezer; she was with me every step of the way all day, and when it came time to turn in, she tucked me in, kissed my forehead, and wished me goodnight, telling me that she would see me in the morning and that she loved me. For an hour after she was gone, I stared up blankly at the ceiling shrouded in the darkness that I knew so well and would otherwise be curled up and alone in, tears running down my face like there was no tomorrow. The feeling of being cared for, the nurturing kindness of a mother I had never been blessed with…it was so beautiful. Beyond what words could describe. Everywhere I went in my life I had been alone, but in this one day, I felt more loved and secure than I had ever felt in the last thousand years put together. It was as though I had been blind all my life, then suddenly allowed the chance to look into the sky and see the universe for the very first time.

Was this what it felt like to belong somewhere - to have a family to rely on; to have a mother to fall back to? Was this what it felt like to have a place in the world, free of the scorn and hate that had been plaguing me since the day I came into being? Was this what it felt like to be someone and not a monster?

Was this what it felt like to be loved?

The next few days were a blur…I can barely remember experiencing them. Hugs here, assuring smiles there, a belly full of the treats and goodies made with painstaking consideration and hopes for a smile…it was the same every day, but even after it became my usual routine, I never tired of it. I could have done the same thing for eons more, if time allowed me the chance, and would I wake up every morning, eager and ready to start the process over? Damn right I would - this was the most blissful existence I had ever found myself a part of; I could love, be loved in return, and never would the cycle run dry. No poachers would attempt to do me in, no trainers would try to enslave me, I would never wake one day and find it all gone, just a dream and a distant memory…no. No, it was real. It was all real - all for me; all of it, right down to the last sugar-sprinkled cookie and whiff of floral perfume. It was all real, and it was all for me.

This was my life, and I was in love with it. So deeply, in fact, that I wasn't willing to give it up.

All the while I was going about the life I had adopted, the previous owner of said life grew more and more restless, watching day come and day go without me acting upon him, or delivering blows, or otherwise allowing him to move from the cognitive corner I had stuffed him into in the back of my head. Sitting there, unable to act, watching as someone lived your life and blinked your eyes and walked in your shoes…I never considered it, but apparently it worked quite unpleasant things on one's conscience. About…oh, the third or fourth day, Barry's fearful anticipation and dread and anxiety finally pushed him past what he could deal with, and he lost it - had he been in control at the time, it would have been quite a scene to behold. When he started screaming, I paused at the table I had been sitting at, abruptly slapping my hand of cards face-down on the table and announced that I had the urgent need to use the bathroom, for which I hastily departed for. I wasn't worried about him breaking through my control and acting on his own - rather, "my" mother seeing the facial expressions and responses to the emotions I felt that managed to rise to the surface as I dealt with this…uprising. The very least he would do was break my concentration in a dire time, but even so, I wanted this to be squelched. _Quickly. _What Barry seemed to have forgotten was the situation he had been forced into and, as the puppeteer holding the strings, it was my job to make him sing and dance to my little tune without his little tantrums and nervous breakdowns. Barry was nothing more than a slave to me.

It was time to remind the puppet what end of the strings he was on…and what I could do if he decided to start yanking on them.

As soon as the bathroom door closed, Barry silenced himself all at once - already he could tell something was wrong. Slowly, casually, I sauntered on over to the toilet on the other side of the room, twisting stylishly in place to sit down on said device, crossing my leg over the other and placing my hands neatly in my lap. After that, I sat there, stared directly ahead of me, tuned into the sound of the clock ticking somewhere in the room, and waited.

_Tick…tick…tick…tick…_

Nerves running high and already worn and weary from days of imprisonment in his own skull, not to mention having been scarred with the unspeakable deeds I had committed in front of him, Barry's impatience and anxiety built both quickly and steadily; I could feel his conscience shifting anxiously, trying to find a nervous habit to exploit to try and vent out some of the anxiety.

_Tick…tick…tick…tick…_

Have you ever tried to tap your foot or bite your fingernails inside your own head before? No? Well, if you did, you'd find yourself rather unsatisfied. Thinking it and doing it are totally different things, and the foremost appears to have very little anxiety relief. Therefore, Barry was forced to sit there, waiting for the other shoe to drop, trying - and failing - to cope with the building stress. All the while, the clock ticked on, syncing to my heartbeat, grinding itself repeatedly against Barry's mind with its repetitive and simple yet unyielding beat. It was a bit like torturing someone by making them listen to water drop out of a faucet, except I was doing it with a clock. He wouldn't last much longer. I could feel the final strings losing their ability to hold together…

_Tick…tick…tick…_

Keeping track, I determined that Barry - despite his best efforts - never made it to that tenth minute. At nine minutes and twelve seconds, directly between the forty fourth and forty fifth seconds, he couldn't take it anymore. _What the fuck are you do-_

All at once the dark void encasing Barry's mind suddenly exploded with the reverberating power of the bellow I emitted into him, roaring _"SILENCE!" _at his mind as loud as I could within the head we shared - if I had done the same out loud and managed to equal the decibel, all the windows in the house would have shattered. Barry couldn't go deaf, since his mind had no ears with drums that could be blown out, but the sheer intensity of the frontal assault left him disoriented and dazed, allowing me to slip into him past his defenses without so much as the faintest resistance.

In his mind, I unleashed complete and total hell - every nightmare image and scene I could come up with off the top of my head I sent spiraling through his mind like bullets aimed for his vitals, tearing through his conscience like barbed arrows through flesh. His being became a nightmare chorus call for every shriek, scream, and inhuman noise that I could remember from all my past nightmares over the years - and rest assured, they were as innumerable as they were unpleasant. I couldn't hear over the cacophony of noise and scenes all playing at once, but I could taste Barry's fear as though he were sitting on the tip of my tongue; I didn't need to sort him out of the chaos to tell he was screaming.

Just in case he didn't think this was bad enough, I took ahold of him and plunged him deeper into my void, completely incasing him in the shadows and darkness that humans fear so - the complete oblivion no human would ever dare to tread. Farther down did I drag him, drowning him into the nightmare I had in store - I could feel a grin peeking through on my features as I felt his fear grow more and more defined until I could only define it as pure terror. I genuinely doubt that Barry had ever been so frightened in his entire life.

But I didn't stop there; I grabbed him now and forced him even deeper into the oblivion, forcing his mind down into the special little realm where I could inflict upon him my own reality…and a new breed of fear for him to choke on…

* * *

**Author's Warning**

Okay, freeze for a moment. I just want you to think for a minute, look back at what you saw so far as far as graphics and brutality, and then ask yourself: do you _really _want to go over this next part? Cuz I'll tell you what, it's just a whole new kind of fucked up - I'm actually surprised that I could write this stuff. If you don't want to figure out the hard way that it's a touch too much for you - something I wouldn't mind one bit - go ahead and skip over it to the next bracket-line-thing. I hate to ruin anyone's day by exposing them to something too graphic for their own good.

Otherwise...ON WITH THE STORY!

* * *

_Most of my nightmares for people began with a moment of calm followed by some unnerving events that slowly dragged them under, but Barry didn't get that blessing; as soon as he became aware of his surroundings, he started to scream - all around him stretched a large, endless field as far as the eye could see, the horizon abruptly curling downward to make way for the sphere of nothing that surrounded this place, like it was its own world encased in a special kind of purple-black darkness. This field, unlike the one I had created in the last nightmare I'd inflicted, was not one of grass, or of flowers, or some other kind of plant life. There was no fresh air, no windmills in the distance…nothing natural or recognizable about this place at all._

_All around for as far as the eye could see, all that surrounded Barry and made up this world was a single massive sheet of mangled and decrepit corpses._

_They stretched out endlessly, bent and twisted at grotesque and unnatural angles, flesh molding and rending entirely so that they could create a more smooth plane, though it didn't do a particularly good job - limb fragments and body pieces stuck up here and there, pieces of bone and other unidentifiable body matter that simply wouldn't change shape poking up out of the surface like boils on a human face. And they weren't just human bodies - though they were difficult to recognize, if one looked closely, you could make out the shapes and forms of different pokemon species, all twisted and mangled and fusing together with the other corpses all around it, as if something had taken them and simply smeared them together like putty. The stench of decay was so powerful, I dared not to make myself aware of the world I'd created - it would have made me physically sick. The reeking odor of death, the image of decay…Barry could only compare this place to Hell. There was simply no other comparison._

_But, the horror wouldn't stop at the sight alone! Without warning, an invisible hand plucked him up and suspended him into the air by the leg, suddenly roaring off with him towards the horizon at breakneck speeds as he dangled there helplessly, only able to flail like a madman and staring at the scene below him with fear-stricken eyes. As if he didn't think the sight was bad enough, now he got to see it upside-down._

_The invisible hand seemed to carry him for miles before abruptly yanking him to a halt, dangling him up about fifty or so feet above the satanic ground below, leaving him hanging there for a good while just for good measures. Movement caught Barry's attention - directly below him, a quintuplet of tendril-like tentacles sprouted up out of the ground like plants, flailing back and forth mindlessly, each giving a shrill squeal and shrieking at inhuman octaves, as if beckoning to the boy just out of their reach, begging him to come down and join them for the fun. In the fleshy ground below, the ground started to shift in the area between the tentacles, and before Barry could realize what shape it was in, the invisible hand holding him abruptly released him, sending him plummeting down to the ground below as he screamed all the while, as he had been doing since he entered this hellish, evil world._

_If he thought _this_ was bad, he ain't seen nothin' yet._

_Barry hit the flesh making up the ground with a sickening _'splat,' _and the second he did, the tentacles were on him - each of them snapped down onto him like Persians pouncing on a field Rattata, immediately canceling out whatever opportunity he had for escape. Like he was nothing more than construction material, the tentacles - each snapped around his arms, legs, and midsection respectively - all turned in unison to fit him into the spot in the ground that had opened up for him, which had taken up the exact shape of Barry's silhouette, providing a perfect fit for him into the plane of tissue and flesh. He fit in like a puzzle piece, and just like that, his fate was sealed._

_But my Hell wasn't done with him yet._

_Without warning, from the ground came a worm, no more than a centimeter thick, but incredibly long - there seemed to be no end to the appendage-like creature as it slithered up to the boy's living crypt, snaking around the site prepared for it as the tentacles holding him in place sank down into the ground until nothing but the parts wrapped around him could be seen, pressing him tight against the ground. To Barry's horror, the spiked nose-tip of the worm traced along his forearm as if admiring his features, saving for him the utmost delicacy - almost tenderness - before, without warning, it plunged into the very edge of his arm, striking through his skin and piercing down into the tissue wall below him, evoking an equally pained and terrified shriek from the boy it had chosen to torment so. It didn't keep going for long - no sooner had it sunk into the ground did the creature's nose poke up out of the ground a half inch or so away, angling its nose over to select the location directly beside the spot it had pierced him, once more plunging into his flesh - not very deeply, mind you; only enough to poke through the skin around the edge. Once it had pierced the ground, it angled over to strike back up through him, angled over, and repeated this process._

_After a little while, through the rapidly growing fear and incredible pain, Barry realized in horror what it was doing: it was sewing him into the ground alive, as though he was nothing but a patch of quilting material. _

_That wasn't the ground or floor beneath him - it was a blanket. A blanket of solid flesh._

_Over and over again, the worm-like thread pierced down through Barry, only to spike up through him once again, turning a bit so it could angle down and pierce through him once more, the parts of it sticking through that could be seen appearing very much like the sewing pattern of a thread and needle, as if I was indeed merely sewing a patch onto a blanket. All around his outline the thread went, spiking in, spiking out, spiking in, spiking out…oh, the pain tasted incredible - his fear…ohh, completely and totally _delicious. _He was a smorgasbord in himself, satisfying my hunger and even providing enough for dessert…incredible. Easily my best work so far, this was; I don't recall ever putting someone through this particular flavor of icy terror and unspeakable horrors, but if I ever got someone in this similar position after this, I would definitely have to do it again. It was…completely…and totally…._delicious. _My mouth was salivating on the outside, it was so good - delectable in the most scrumptious ways! Ohh, yes, this would have to be done a second time some day!_

_Finally, at long last, the thread sank into Barry's skin and didn't come back out again - it was at its full length. The sewing process could go on no more. Unfortunately for Barry, however, the process was also completed: all around his outline did the thread stretch, covering every last square inch of his outside, going completely around his arms, legs, body, hands, feet…it even managed to find room to stick into the skin of his head, sliding beneath his scalp and evoking a particularly delicious octave of shrieking from him…hehehe…it actually looked a little cute; he looked so perfect and neat, just laying there, freshly sewn into place. _

_Oh, hell - how could I resist? Time for the grand finale!_

_All at once the sky turned black and, unable to turn or otherwise move to look away, Barry had nowhere else to look, eventually realizing that he wasn't looking up at a sky at all but a single wall of flawless black skin. The mass shifted now, turning so that the form could bear its eye at him - its single, massive, ultra neon-blue eye, containing a single white pupil with the intensity of a small sun - zooming in on his form, seemingly piercing him a thousand times like no giant thread and needle ever could, stretching down into his soul._

_Up in the sky, appearing as a giant beyond calculable measure, appeared yours truly._

_The scream that passed his lips…oh, sweet Arceus, it was like angel chorus. My blood chilled to levels cold enough to freeze it solid, my hearts skipping a beat…ahhh….sweet nectar. It did an old nightmare apparition like me good. It probably added a good decade or so to my lifespan - did he even realize what bliss his terror was putting me through?_

_Of course not. Right now, Barry was so scared, he wasn't thinking at all. The only thing he could do was scream…scream and scream and scream, as if that was all he was designed for - his only purpose. If he had lungs in this dream world-turned-hell, he would have long-since ruined them with all this screaming. Not that it bothered me - far from it, in fact. I could sit here and just bathe in Barry's terror for days…but, good things can't last forever, now can they? Time to wrap it up…or in this case, wrap _me _up._

_My now huge, incalculably large claws gripped the edges of the plane of Hell Barry was sewn into, picking it up in my huge arms and flicking it slightly, as if it was nothing more than one giant blanket made of regular, everyday cloth. My massive eye searched over its details, gouging fine details into it with the intensity of my infinitely intense pupil before, satisfied with its quality, I laid back onto my back, flicked the huge blanket up, and allowed it to fall down onto me, Barry facing straight downwards…and watching as the form of the most horrible creature he could imagine raced up to meet him._

_A split second before he hit me, like a dream where the victim was falling, I abruptly cut it off._

_Though perhaps Barry knew as well as I did that the nightmare wouldn't end with the dream._

* * *

...and okay. Now. Don't forget to breathe, and as soon as you're done freaking out and can unwrap from that blanket of yours, remember I WARNED YOU and quit thinking about how much you don't like me right now. Believe me - I _know. _XD

* * *

I had claimed many a night, in my history of tormenting the minds of those that only wished to sleep peacefully. I had heard many a scream, many a beg for mercy, many noises that I didn't even think humans could make…but none of them - _none _of the millions of reactions I'd seen over the eons - could provide me with the satisfaction that could even _pray _to parallel with what was provided for me right then and there.

Barry was, ultimately, completely, and totally scared _out of his mind._

Deep, throaty laughter immediately began to resound off of the mental realm that he and I shared - I could barely hear it over the shrieking. Not just screaming, but _shrieking _- noise capable of curdling blood with the very essence of icy terror that had to be shredding Barry's conscience like a cheese grater to a block of cheddar. There were many ways that a person could scream, but only one kind hit that special, unmistakable octave of fear - it _breathed _fear. Whatever part of Barry's brain that generated the feeling of fear was on complete overhaul - I wished it would jam and just keep on generating it, but brains aren't like machines; they don't work like that. Then again, the magnitude of the boy's torment could, with this incident alone, provide me with enough fear and satiated thirst for such for weeks - months, even. Maybe even a year. It was beautiful - for a dark, twisted nightmare entity like myself, the scenario I had created was a work of art; worthy of a picture, a frame around it, and a special spot on the wall for it to hang on for all to see.

Oh, how I wished there were more Darkrai around in the world - this would make a marvelous piece in a museum…though it was a particular branch of art that only my kind seemed to be able to truly appreciate.

But enough thinking; time to sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

_Perhaps now you'll understand, _I boomed into him, darkness churning with the weight of my amusement - if I could in mind, I would be smiling a big, sinister smile, a bit like a demented and slightly evil Cheshire Meowth. Okay, a little more than "slightly." _Bear witness to what power I hold over you…and the full gravity of your situation._

Barry didn't respond - I don't think he could have, even if he wanted to. Right now, he sounded a bit like someone that had been pushed beyond their mental capacities, rambling and ranting on about nothing in particular - something about monsters or something - mostly just screaming and moaning - trying to find ways to properly express his fear and angst, and failing to do so, instead just sounding like he'd lost his mind. Eventually this led to more screaming, which eventually boiled down to whimpering and sobbing until, at last, he fell silent, performing the cognitive equivalent of rocking back and forth in the fetal position, all but sucking his thumb like a fucking baby.

Oh yes. Now he understood completely - there was no doubt in my mind that he clearly grasped the situation that he found himself in with all the clarity as a slap to the face. His situation: this was _my _world. His head was a cage, and I was the warden. He was the puppet, and in my hand were the strings to make every aspect of his being sing and dance to my little tune. This was far beyond a democracy - there were no rules. There was no limit. There was no Arceus - in this world, _I _was Arceus. _I _had the power. He was _my _puppet, and when I said so, he would spring to life and do a little dance, chirp a little tune…anything and everything I wanted for him to do. It was all in the air, and I was calling the shots.

This wasn't just Hell - it was _my _Hell. And as long as I held the trigger to add on fuel, I was going to make sure that Barry always felt as though he was_ burning alive._

A knock on the door stirred me from my thoughts; "Barry?" his mother called, slightly concerned - I could feel it through the door. "Everything alright in there, honey?"

I couldn't resist a grin; I'd been in here this entire time, hadn't I? Locked away in a bathroom, making not a sound…no wonder she got worried. "I'm fine, mom," I answered casually, already in the midst of standing. My point had been made - no reason just sitting here. To keep my cover, I turned the handle of the toilet, walking for the door as the sound of flushing blared obnoxiously after me.

After scaring a boy out of his mind and torturing him with terror incomparable to that which he couldn't compare, I strolled casually to the living room to finish a round of Backgammon with the woman I was pretending was my mother.

Life couldn't get any better than this.

* * *

Time passed by at a leisurely pace, bearing witness to my new routine: wake up, spend time with "mother," make up for a few years' worth of loneliness and cold, then go back to sleep to repeat the process. Barry never said a word after the incident in the bathroom - sure enough, it seemed like his lesson had been learned: he was the puppet, and he was just going to have to deal with it. I don't think I've ever had quite a successful nightmare result as that before. I was definitely going to have to keep that one tucked away so as to save it for future breakings.

My wallowing in Barry's misery had reawakened my inner rancor, and like a hungry Primeape stirred from its nap, it banged and rattled at the bracings of its cage, roaring for more - _more _sustenance. _More _terror. _More _fear. _More _pain. More, more, _more. _This wonderful time of peace had done wonders for my aching heart - I had never felt quite as loved as this, but I was a creature that fed off of fear and gorged on terror. Love would only get me so far; it would soothe my conscience, but nothing could warm the cockles of my heart like a terrified scream could. There simply was no better replacement for fear than for fear. So, I needed to get back to my old little game and pet project: fuck up Barry's life. And, what better place to continue doing so than at his own home, where his mother resided? I couldn't have been presented a better target if it had a Tauros-eye on it.

I batted the idea of killing Barry's mother back and forth over the next few days, but I was so at ease in the warm treatment I was receiving in the image of her son that I couldn't quite find the resolve to do it, too lethargic to raise a hand to strike her. If I did that, then the treatment would end - I'd be back on my own without anyone to care for me. I would have to go back to that eventually, but not now - I could take just one more day…just one more day. I knew it wouldn't stick to "just one more day," but honestly, this seemed like too sweet a deal to just cut off so abruptly. Finally, I decided that I would ride this through until the effect lost its luster and I needed to go back to my old diet of misery and pain. Until then, I'd just settle back, kick my feet up - I actually had those now - and wait for the bitch to give me a sign.

I got one sooner than I anticipated.

It was a sunny afternoon - Twinleaf hadn't seen a rain cloud in a month, so I'd heard, but the signs of drought or lack of water was nowhere to be seen: the grass was vibrant and green, the air had a tinge of moisture to it - not too humid, not too dry - and it never got too hot. Twinleaf Town always had perfect weather, for some reason, and it was something that the residents had truly come to appreciate - unlike nearby sea-bordering cities, the weather never got anything past placid and calm. Canalave, for example, just got hit with some nice storms that Twinleaf only got grazed by, taking form as a cloudy sky and a wind that went just a pinch past that pleasant breeze that always blew through town. The people here were lucky; apparently that storm had some nice activity in it. Waves lapping up on shore almost got six feet tall. Further out on the islands of Newmoon and Fullmoon, things were even rougher…perhaps even rough enough to knock something into the water that was hanging by the shore, for example…

It wasn't a complete surprise, but I hadn't really been anticipating it, either. It started as a routine news report - "mom" always had the TV on in the afternoon to check the weather while she made lunch - that didn't seem too interesting in itself; just a few regular going-ons that weren't of too much importance. Once I heard a certain name come up, however, all of a sudden I became quite interested.

"…_found the bodies of eight other pokemon, including that of a wild Cresselia rumored to have inhabited the island…"_

My head snapped up, twisting around from the counter I had been leaning on, immediately turning up the volume as I sat on the couch, leaned forward in anticipation. They found her body…their bodies. All of them. All of the pokemon I'd killed, the corpse of Kenny…and Cresselia. Since it was the lightest of them all, Kenny's body had somehow fallen into the ocean during the storm, later washing up on the beach near Canalave City. It was too waterlogged and partially eaten by Water pokemon to readily identify as Kenny, but it had led them back to Fullmoon isle, where they found the bodies of the pokemon engaged in the battle there. They said, according to the wounds, they suspect that a Dark-type move was used to finish off most of the pokemon, as well as the "unidentified" trainer body; Cresselia appeared to be in the worst shape and was believed to be the target of the attack, the trainer later walking in on them from the commotion. Because of the number of pokemon belonging to a trainer, there was suspected to be a second trainer somewhere, but they hadn't found anything yet. They weren't quite sure who or what would have been able to inflict such grievous wounds to the deceased, but they had a few ideas.

It wasn't long into their speculating that my name came up. I suppose it was only natural that they marked the Darkrai of Newmoon Isle as their prime suspect.

From behind me, Barry's mother shook her head, commenting on how horrible it was. I didn't respond, staring intently at the TV screen, even as it went to a commercial, too deep in thought to notice. What could this mean for me?

They didn't know who the body was, which would have placed Barry on the suspect list, if they knew of their relationship. There didn't seem to be any evidence as to where I had gone, since it had been a while ago and anything would have been washed away by the storm, so my location was secure - even if it wasn't, it would be pretty easy to change that; I could fly, after all, and it's not like they could trail my scent through the air. No one knew that Barry was involved, and his mother didn't seem to recognize any of the pokemon as her son's - they could just be anyone's that happened to be his, after all. Kenny was a trainer anyway, and Barry was here, so no one would notice that either of them was missing, since the former was already on the road and nearly impossible to track until he never came home, but that would be a long time from now. Sure, they knew I was involved, but what could they do? What would they be able to do to me if they caught me? What danger was I in of being caught, or of Barry's cover being blown? I was too powerful for them - no pokemon they could train or team they could assemble would have what it took to take me down. Even if they caught me red-handed, what could they do to stop me?

Ultimately? Nothing. Nothing at all. This didn't change anything. Besides…by the time they ID'd the body as Kenny, the only person that knew Barry was with him at the time would be dead. They'd never stop me. My plan was safe.

No one could stop me now. _No one._

I was stirred from reality by speech, but I had been so focused on thinking that I hadn't heard what she said. Smiling sheepishly, I shook my head a little to look back to "my" mother, who had returned to cutting something on the counter with her back to me. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, that Darkrai sure is an evil thing, isn't he?"

My heart skipped a beat. I could feel every muscle in my body tensing, hands clenching into fists, the plastic of the remote held in one of them creaking slightly in protest to the pressure. What…that…did she just say…yes, she did…she said it. "Evil"; I heard it, just now. Plain as day. She called me "evil."

How _dare _she.

Keeping my temper relatively under control, I made sure that my tone was well-balanced - I was altering it to sound like Barry anyway, so it only really took another adjustment or two - before going into conversation. Naturally, since it was me and the most painful thing I could remember we were talking about, I took to my own defense, albeit subtly. "…what makes you say that?" I asked, as if I hadn't just heard the story myself.

Barry's mother gave me a funny look, gesturing to the TV screen. "You saw the news just now, didn't you? They said he killed some trainer and all his pokemon. They haven't even found the other one yet." She sighed, turning back to resume cutting. "Poor dear…I have a feeling he's dead, too."

_No, _I thought, glad she was looking away so she wouldn't see my smirk, giving a mental glance to the form of Barry's weak, weary mind. _But I bet he sure wishes that was true. _"Yeah, but…I dunno. Killing Cresselia? I mean…why her?"

Barry's mother shrugged nonchalantly, as if it wasn't that hard to figure out. "Well, they _are_ opposites. She's good, he's evil…I guess it's only natural he'd want her dead. The villain in the story always does, right?"

I felt my jaw clenching, the muscle popping slightly out of my cheek, fists clenching just a bit tighter. Again, there was that "E" word; she said I was evil. _Again. _That wench…what the fuck did she know about me, anyway? What made her so sure that I was evil? What made them even so sure that I was the bad guy here? What if it was _me _that was the victim, huh? They sure didn't mention _that _on the news report, _oh _no - if they did that, the people reporting would be out of a job! It was just that ridiculous! "If you get to thinking about it," I said, speaking carefully so as to keep my tone even and the underlying emotions hidden, "he might not really be that bad. Like, I mean…he lives all by himself, alone in the dark, no one to care for him…no happiness…gotta be dreary as hell over there. Like, if you think about it for a second, he might not be bad at all. Maybe it's just that no one understands him."

To my surprise and delight, she seemed to take this in for a moment, angling her head up as she stopped cutting briefly, mulling this over. "Well, I suppose that could be a possibility," she mused thoughtfully. "Hmm…well, if that's the case, that would make _him _the victim, right? And, I guess, if no one understood him, Cresselia would be the closest thing he had for a friend. They might be opposites, but she would know him better than anyone else…"

For a moment, I felt my spirits on the rise, my fists unclenching and giving the remote still clasped in one some mercy. Finally…someone that would listen. Someone that would take things in, even if it was brainstorming, consider it, and just think. _Thinking _about it. _Trying _to understand where I came from - what I was, what happened to me. _Understanding. _She was taking in what my story was, though it wasn't from my own lips, per se, and thought it over. Considered if it was real. That was what I had wanted all along - someone to listen - to _think _about it, rather than just judging me based on what they could see on the outside. Maybe, by some chance, I _wasn't _some heartless demon; maybe I was just like everyone else, and that the years of loneliness and misunderstanding had made me into something that I had never wanted to be. Maybe I had a heart, like everyone else; maybe I had feelings. Maybe I wasn't all bad. For people to think that, to try to understand me…that's it. That was all I asked. It was all that I had ever wanted.

"And," I put in, feeling more and more eager to clear my name up, "who knows? They say opposites attract…heck, maybe Darkrai and Cresselia would make a good couple."

In one moment, my hopes were on the rise.

In the next, they were shot down and shoved into my face.

To my horror, Barry's mother cracked out a grin and chuckled -_ laughed _at the idea, as if it was simply too ridiculous to consider - and shook her head lightly, looking back down to the food she continued to cut. "Hahaha…no, I don't think so. There's a limit to all that 'fire and ice romance' stuff, you know. Besides…I don't think they'd mesh too well. He's a monster - she'd never love him."

For a split second, my whole world seemed to grind to a halt. I couldn't feel my heartbeat…hell, maybe it had stopped completely and I was going to drop dead any second. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Shock and horror turned to anger, which boiled and frothed until rage was bubbling through my being with such intensity that even Barry started to grow tense, feeling something was about to happen. She…how dare…how _dare _she. That bitch thought that, just because we had differing abilities, we were no match whatsoever? She thought that, because they had me all figured out, they could go ahead and judge me so far as to say who would and wouldn't fall in love with me? What did she know - what did _any _of them know about Darkrai? When they thought up my name and gave it a good look-over, what did they truly know about me? Did they know who I was? No. Did they ever once stop to talk and find out? No - they just made it up themselves. They weren't about to stoop down to such a low as to actually _hear my side of the story - _why would they have to? They already had me _all _figured out, by Arceus! They made no effort to figure it out and didn't stop a moment in the arrogant, self-righteous judging or step past their egos to learn, but somehow, they figured it all out on their own! It was magical, wasn't it? They sure must be smart, to figure things out without even asking! Humans sure knew a lot!

Wrong. They knew _nothing - _they judged me, they wronged me, they scorned me, and in the end, they knew _nothing. _They had no right to hate me, or even think poorly of me; they had no idea who I was. And you know what? Maybe _I _had _them _all figured out. Maybe I hated them for the same reason they hated me: because they were horrible, unspeakably cruel monsters worthy of nothing but a bullet between the eyes. Except, in this case, I would be _right. _They deserved to die…evil humans. Evil, evil little monsters. I hated them.

I wanted to kill them all. I would have liked for them all to die everywhere all at once…but I had to start somewhere.

…_fuck it._

Barry's mother, clueless though she was, must have sensed the change of mood in the air, as she stopped cutting whatever she was for a moment, pausing as if to examine it more closely. She must have felt the anger…although, from the intensity from my glare, I'm surprised she didn't burst into flame. Her motherly instincts weren't proving her wrong when she detected something, and I could tell she wanted to turn to face me, perhaps at any moment. For now, though, she seemed to be waiting for me to say something else in response to her prior comment.

There came no reply - no words, no noise…not even breathing. Had I left? Was I still in the room with her? She could feel my presence behind her, staring at her, though for some reason I had said nothing more…perhaps she should say something. Maybe she had said something about what had troubled me before and upset me by accident? She should say something - apologize, change the subject…anything.

She never got the chance. Just as she turned to face me, she stopped, whatever words she was going to emanate dying before they ever reached her lips. She couldn't react in any way, shape, or form. She was completely speechless.

She was lifeless, too. Then again, that might just be because her head exploded.

The echo of a blast tearing through the house quickly died away, revealing that, beneath the sudden burst, the birds' songs outside had abruptly fall deathly silent. My hand was raised, the white-pink skin of Barry's arm peeled back and disappeared to reveal the black, sinister flesh of something far more fearsome and more ferocious than any mere human, my four-fingered hand facing her palm-out, specifically towards the space where her head would fit on her shoulders. The black aura smoldering off of my skin like smoke indicated where my Dark Pulse had materialized, and the pieces of blackened debris pattering down on the floor and counter in the kitchen indicated that her head had, indeed, simply ceased to be. The only indication that Barry's mother ever had something on the end of her neck was the blackened flesh around the edges and the unmistakable aura of death in the room.

For a perfect moment, everything was still. Every muscle in Barry's mother's body had spontaneously seized up and frozen, allowing her to defy gravity for a while longer and stay upright, hands and arms frozen in mid-cutting motion, still as a statue. When the moment passed and she "realized" she was dead, she collapsed - her arms dropped limply to her side, which threw her off of her perfect balance, causing her to tilt to the side, keep on tilting, and flop onto the floor like a 130-pound sack of potatoes.

Nothing moved. Time stood still - it was like Dialga had realized what was happening and, for a moment of silent mourning, allowed the world to simply stop spinning. Not a noise was to be heard for what seemed like hours.

Finally, a noise was let off…in the form of chuckling. Slowly, these chuckles escalated into snickers, steadily gaining enthusiasm and intensity until I was laughing hysterically, flopping back onto the couch and doubling over, clutching my gut, cackling like I had just heard the funniest joke in the entire world. That was…completely…and totally…_hilarious. _Not even funny - it skipped right past that and went into a gut-busting knee-slapping laughing-stock - did you _see _that? I fired the Dark Pulse, and her head just…vanished. Other than the little black pieces of scorched crap speckling the kitchen floor and counter, it was like nothing had ever been there. And then - ooh, the best part! - she just _stood there! _No head, dead as a doornail, and she stood there, as if trying to wrap her head around it - that wouldn't be too hard now, since all you'd have to do was fit the pieces accordingly and you'd be all set! Oh, sweet Arceus…that was priceless, right there. Absolutely beautiful - worthy of a picture. And a catch phrase to go with it: "Look ma, no face!" Hahahahaha! Hahaha…ohh, that just sent me into a whole new wave of hysterics - that was priceless. Absolutely _priceless._ I wish I'd had a camera for that. I should have done that to Kenny the first time, back when this all started!

Speaking of which…Barry was, as expected, sobbing just as hysterically as I was laughing - he was devastated. His mother was dead…this was a tragedy. An absolute tragedy…but not really. Because only a human would be sad that a human had died. Pokemon in general could care less - I myself would be glad, even in a better state of mind, that the people enslaving my extraracial kinsmen were now one less strong. But now - in my more…questionable state of mind - I was absolutely bouncing off the wall with delight. It was dead - dead! The human was dead! The human was dead! What tragedy was Barry sobbing about? This was a happy occasion! Humans all deserved to die - they were evil, unspeakable monsters, and what better thing could happen than for someone that had been wronged to such a horrible extent to slay one of them? I was like a knight that had killed the Charizard - glorious and righteous. I had done the right thing. How did I know this? Because humans were evil, and evil was something that needed to be purged. Let them all die - the world would be far better off without them. If Arceus took them all and made them all disappear, it would be something worthy of celebration. He wouldn't, however - they pompous oaf wouldn't put forth the effort to get up off His fat ass and scratch said location. Therefore, someone was going to have to do it for Him. Someone had to kill the humans.

If someone was going to do it, it might as well be me.

It's not like they wouldn't do the same to me - I had a sneaking suspicion that, once upon a time, there was more than one Darkrai in the world and that they were simply killed off by none other than good ol' humanity - that would be something they would do, too: find something they didn't understand and kill it off rather than admit they didn't know anything about them. They did it with each other all the time; just look at all the wars they waged. They were just as happy killing themselves as they were anything else.

Well, humanity might as well declare world peace - they didn't need to fight one another. As of now, Darkrai was all the war they needed. Why kill each other when they could have someone step in and do it for them?

Even as I lay there, laughing until tears came to my eyes and rolled down my cheeks, my inner demon writhing in delight, I was planning - oh yes, I wasn't done yet. Not by a _long _shot. I still had a lot of work to do, and the night was young - there was always time to spill a little blood and move someone up on the big hit-list. Barry was going to be one miserable little bastard...well, no, scratch that- he wasn't a bastard. Not yet.

Tonight, however, all that would change.

* * *

_**AN:**_

For all of those who thought Barry's mother would live, for shame. I thought you'd know me better than that by now. xD

Alrighty, chapter three has arrived! I have a bit more ready, but I decided it was long enough and just cut it here, where it would make a nice chapter in itself. I'm trying to do something with the chapter names... Hint: keep an eye on the first letters of the chapter titles for a secret - if not somewhat predictable - message. Fufufu...clever points for me~! XD

On a little more depressing note, I'm a bit disappointed in y'all. I asked for a total of ten reviews, and all I got was eight. That's sad. How am I supposed to know what's going good and what I need to work on if no one tells me? I can't just split a personality off and make it read it for me - I need someone else to do that. So people, please: do me a big, big favor: _review. _I see y'all readin', and I know you're thinking _something _about what you just read, so please just take a few minutes to write it down and send it to me? Please? It would mean a lot if you did - there's nothing that makes my day like looking at the computer and going "Oh, check it out! Someone left a review for me!"

So please: review. Please please _please _and many many thank-you's. x3

Chapter four's on it's way...ooh, I should probably get to that right now! Toodles~! _-runs off-_


	4. Knave Intrusions

_**Knave Intrusion**_

* * *

I could barely contain my excitement for the big event; things were all set up, and with it, the trap. All I had to do was wait for my target to slip in past the entrance, and I could snap it shut and put on the squeeze. The rest would all just be process of elimination…with emphasis on the "elimination" part.

Since I killed Barry's mother, things had gotten busy.

First off: I had to get rid of the body. I wasn't worried about it stinking any, since it was still fresh, but the sight of a headless body on the floor tended to attract more than its fair share of attention, and there were plenty of windows to peek in through. I could either plug up the windows, which would be more conspicuous, or I could get rid of the body. Being the more efficient choice, I chose the latter.

I had discovered as of late that leaving a body out in the open, even in the sanctity of an island no one dared to tread on, was a bad idea - given the proper circumstances, anything and everything can and would go against your favor, if you left it any kind of room to navigate. I couldn't be careless like I had last time; I needed to get rid of the body, and I needed to do it effectively and efficiently - make it so that no one anywhere would ever find the evidence to use against me in some way. So, I had a few options.

My first option was to use some of my more powerful moves - like Dark Pulse or maybe even Shadow Ball - to simply burn the corpse away with the power of the moves themselves. This was a plausible option, and if I went somewhere no one was at, I could do it without raising too much attention. However, that would leave the residue to consider - the black scorches left behind, apparently, could be traced back to a particular kind of move - both Ghost and Dark types were some that people knew a Darkrai could learn to favor, and if they ever found where I disposed of it, or even somehow found pieces of the body themselves, they would know it was me. That would raise a few more questions, and though they couldn't do anything against me specifically, it would be best that everyone know as little about this for as long as possible. I needed a way to erase the body completely with no evidence left behind, and with no way of being able to trace it back anywhere.

It seems that I had come into contact with every killer's most critical dilemma: I had to get rid of the body. Nobody could find it. I needed it to disappear somehow. But how? It wasn't like I could just dump it in the ocean…

…wait. Scratch that thought; I could definitely do that. It was true that they found the first body - Kenny's body - washed up on shore, but that was just because it hadn't been destroyed completely; they couldn't recognize it, but it was still there, and that was all they needed, not to mention all the others sitting there with all but a neon bulletin board over it, telling them everything they needed to know. But I couldn't just dump it and fly off; I needed to be thorough. If it came to the surface, someone might find it…which is exactly why I needed it to _sink._ Possibly with the aid of some added weight - quite a bit of it, just to be certain she didn't come up off the bottom, at least until something big and scaly down there got hungry.

Perfect. Nobody went to the bottom of the ocean, and if they did, it would be long after the body had been eaten away, either rotted or swallowed by a Kyogre. Now all I needed was something to help it sink and I could dump the bitch.

Turns out, people don't just keep a lead weight tied to a chain lying around, so I had to improvise. As if I was strolling through a grocery store, making my selection, I walked casually about the house, eying the furniture and apparel all around, looking for a good match. I'd decided that if it could be tied, it could be _un_tied...and possibly come undone on its own. So, rather than tie it, I'd just take whatever it was and make sure it couldn't come undone - make sure she stayed anchored to the bottom of the ocean. What I really needed was a pipe - one with enough length and sufficient thickness - so I could bend it relatively easily and still have enough weight attached to send her down, but if there was anything like that around here, it was probably in the walls, and I didn't feel like ripping through the house's foundation to find a suitable part. I'd much rather just find something laying around and use that instead, but if I had to - which was starting to seem the case - then I guess I wouldn't have a choice.

Damn…it looked like people didn't really make much that fit the bill; everything was either too big to carry the distance I'd need to, not heavy enough, or didn't have anything that I could use to attach to her. So that meant I could either A: risk having it come back up by tying it to something or B: make a mess and find a big pipe to bend around her a few times, or maybe gore her like a fish on a pike. Deciding the latter would be the lesser of two evils (ironic, considering the circumstances), I let out a sigh, turned back to all-Darkrai, and hovered idly down towards what Barry remembered as the basement. Guess I'd have to go into renovating after all.

To my fortune, it turned out that Barry's family kept quite a bit of junk down there, any particular piece of which could aid me in my endeavor without making my life too miserable, so I decided to start my search again down there. There was a lot of ground to cover, but being able to move through the shadows in a dark, cramped place like their basement made my job a lot easier, and it wasn't long before I found exactly what I was looking for.

It was a simple chair, not at all too festive or overly comfortable-looking, probably why it was down here and all the better ones were actually in use. It had a simple metal frame comprised of four metal bars forming the feet, a metal bar connecting each of the feet together, a blank spot on top for the cushion or what have you to be set, and a pair of metal bars jutting upwards for the back, a plank of wood connecting the two tongs. It was an ugly thing, but it was exactly what I was looking for; looks really didn't matter when I was going to be tossing it into the ocean anyway.

Curious as to whether it would be enough, I gave it a pull to gauge its weight, and I blinked in surprise - that thing was heavier than it looked. That had to be solid iron, right there…iron or steel, it didn't really matter. It would most certainly be enough to anchor a corpse down. So now all I had to do was get it upstairs and I could get rid of what was left of Barry's mother.

The former proved a little difficult, even with my strength exceeding that of any human, but with enough wrestling, I finally managed to get the damn thing upstairs and over to the corpse in need of disposal. Removing the wooden piece between the two beams was easy enough - with a figure ironically reminiscent of the tongs on a serving fork, it was pretty clear what intentions I had for this chair here.

Hefting Barry's mother's limp, headless form up over my head, I angled her over towards the chair, heaved up slightly, then brought her down on the two beams. _Hard. _

Like the fork it resembled, the tongs jutted up through her back a bit like a harpoon through the hide of a Wailmer, the ensuring squishing noise as the tongs slid along through meat enough to make even _me _cringe; still ever-aware of what I was doing to the body of his mother, if he could, Barry would have puked. Not that I'd lend him his body long enough to do so.

Seeing as there was a bit of room for the body to slide off, I cupped my hands together, allowing the form of a Shadow Ball form between my hands, keeping it a fairly manageable size as I moved it over the base of the tongs sticking up out of the corpse I intended to dispose of.

Fun fact: energy creates heat. Dark energy in particular, such as the energy used for Ghost and Dark-type special attacks, creates quite a bit of heat. So, holding that Shadow Ball there over the metal bar was a bit like holding an active flame over it, albeit much, much hotter - no light or actual flames, but definitely as hot as a very intense one. When it was glowing an angry color, I dissipated the energy, pounded harshly down on the chair to smash its feet through the tiles on the floor to hold it steady, and attempted to bend the metal.

Even for someone like me, bending solid metal was no easy task; slowly, ever so steadily, however, the metal began to slightly tilt to the right, reluctantly yielding to the muscles bulging and straining beneath my night-black skin. I could go all the way to the base so it was completely horizontal and guarantee it wouldn't fall off, but that would have been a lot more work than necessary. I stopped at a roughly 50-degree angle, taking away whatever chance the corpse had of slipping off the end; it would have to bend and twist at an impossible angle to do so, so it probably wasn't going anywhere. That, and this metal was pretty durable…by the time it rusted, the corpse would have been long-eaten, and even if anyone found it, it would be impossible to recognize as even human.

It was set. Now the only thing I had to do was get rid of it.

Without another moment of hesitation, I got a good grip on the chair, hefted it into the air, and took off, headed for the ocean.

It wouldn't be as simple as just dumping it off - it was hard to miss something so massive as an ocean, but it wasn't finding it that would be the important part. The part that mattered was that, not only would I get enough depth for the corpse to fall, but a reasonably populated spot in the ocean as well. If you were a bottom-feeder, where would you go: in the open ocean, which equaled a sub-aquatic desert, or in the more populated areas where more corpses would be sinking to the bottom? It seemed pretty obvious to me - drop the thing you wanted eaten where scavengers stopped by the most. Something like a human body might not attract as much because it was smaller…some Barboach or Whishcash or something would enjoy the meal. Out 100 meters above nothing but ocean, I held the body out by the wrist, extended my arm…

...and hesitated.

I won't say that I was starting to regret what I did, because frankly, I didn't; humans were humans, and as far as I was concerned, they all deserved to burn. My only regret was not making Barry watch her suffer first, but apart from that, her death was quite pleasant to me. Not only did she deserve to die, she did so in a way that tickled me in a dark, slightly sadistic fashion, which didn't happen very often. Her death was a welcome one.

However…that didn't mean that I wouldn't miss her, perhaps in just a little way. True, she thought that I was a monster - she said so herself - and didn't even know that I was who I was and not her son, but while she was alive, she provided me with the solace that I had never received before, as well as the genuine care of a mother that I had never had. She gave me things no one ever did: smiles. Compassion. Even for a brief moment, a flicker of understanding. She allowed me to feel what I had only dreamed of: love. The love of a mother to her child.

It was all a game - I knew it all along - but despite that fact, what time we spent together was…it…just made me happier than I had been in a long, long time. I didn't regret killing her for a moment…but I was going to miss her living. It was an odd sort of sense…for a brief moment of silence, I closed my eye, took in a slow, deep breath, and allowed a brief passage for both Barry and I to silently grieve her death.

She may be part of an evil human race…but for at least two beings in the world, she would be missed. We - Barry and I both - would never forget her.

…and then the moment was gone. Without a second thought, I released my hold on her, dropping the headless corpse of what had been my mother for the last two weeks three-hundred feet straight down into the open ocean, destined for the bottom. I watched her fall all the way down until she vanished into the endless blue in a splash of white before that, too, disappeared entirely.

I had a strange sensation then. On one hand, I was sad that we would never get to spend any more time together - that our relationship as mother and son, short though it was, had to end in such a tragic way. Some small part of me - the part that still held that aged, withered heart, abused by the years of torment and weathered by the cruelty of time - felt a small pang of guilt for what had happened.

However, the larger part of me - the part possessing the demon that had been awakened - couldn't be more delighted to watch the corpse of my prey fall down into an oblivion of blue where unseen monsters would devour her flesh. She would be remembered…and, after Barry was dead, her memory would only serve as a reminder of how funny a death could be.

As Barry bawled in loss and agony, I turned and headed back to Twinleaf town with a wide, sinister grin plastered across my face. Today was a good day.

The best part was that it was only going to get better.

* * *

Once I was back at Twinleaf Town, I had to decide on something: Palmer.

My original mission was to go around and destroy all that Barry held dear to him, just like he did to me. Now that his mother was gone, the next logical choice would be the father, who would be the first to notice the other was gone. That might not necessarily be the case here, however: according to what I could sift through in my violating of Barry's memories, Palmer had become a big-shot over a place called the "Battle Frontier," where hundreds of trainers from all over the world came to force their enslaved pokemon to battle for spectacle on a mass scale, fighting for glory and recognition…all the trainers', of course; none of the pokemon - the ones actually doing all of the work - got any kind of recognition or fame, bar a little print and picture beneath the trainer's name, showing what pokemon he - in this case literally - used. Disgusting…slavers were bad enough, and then when the slavers became great, their slaves - the very foundation of their success - received nothing but mentioning in fine print under the glorified image of the human that, ultimately, did nothing but bark orders and stand by all pretty-like while their "battle partners" got the hell beat out of them. Slaver scum…oh yes, it was decided: Palmer was going to die.

My decision was sound, and there was no doubt in my mind that Palmer was next - I didn't have to consider it a moment longer. What I had to pause and think about, however, was _how _to kill him; not the process I would have to go through so much as the particular manner this man was to meet his untimely demise - the "theme", per se. Of course I wanted it to be painful and unusual - what better kind of death than a bizarre, grizzly one worthy of recognition for technique and brutality? What to do, what to do…as he was close to Barry's heart, I wanted it to be horrible - a particularly painful blow to the unfortunate victim of my wrath. What flavor of death was I in the mood for tonight?

Did I want to…tear his arms off? No, no…how about tearing one off, then- no, blasting it off with Dark Pulse so it would be cauterized, then beating him to death with the severed appendage? Now _that _was a death: beaten to death with his own limbs. Hahaha! Worthy of its own spot in a playbook (if murder had a playbook). Ah, if only…hmm…well, what could I do? I wanted it to be as horrible as I could make it - not just for Palmer, but for Barry, who had front-row seats to the whole event. His mother's death had been painless: a quick blow to the head, the only unpleasantries for the boy brought about with the treatment of her body. He wouldn't get so lucky the second time; this one was going to be at least twice as gruesome to make up for it. Anything past that would just be for the hell of it and my own amusement.

After a while, I thought of something…and grinned in sinister delight. Ooh, yes…tonight was going to be fun, alright.

Step number one was already complete: the body was properly disposed of. There wouldn't be any recovering of that particular piece of evidence. Now I could move onto step two: preparation of the scene. I couldn't have my prey just amble into a regular home and have the shit scared out of them, now could I? That would be completely unsporting - boring, even. I had to decorate! No haunted house would be complete without proper decorations, yes? Just like no to-be scene of death would be complete without the unmistakable air of death and destruction. I had to make sure the audience got the right feel for things.

Still in my original form, I hovered idly into the house with a careless flick of the door out of my way, causing it to give a crack as the doorknob created a dent in the wall it collided with - my strength was far beyond that of a human, even with something like opening a door. I floated in like I had nothing in the world to do, looking around the room boredly. There was that simple blue wallpaper, the carpet in the living room, the flawlessly while tiles in the kitchen, marred only by the streaks left behind by scorched chunks of skull skidding across them…mm…yes, this house was unmistakably…bland. Boring. Completely unremarkable. No way anyone would want to kill someone in this place, unless they were the decorator - but then again, I had already taken care of that, hadn't I? No, no…this wouldn't do. This wouldn't do at all. It didn't at all fit the picture I was going for.

Time for some redecorating, Darkrai-style.

First of all, that carpet? Pff…hideous. Just for the hell of it, I charged a Dark Pulse and angled back a bit so that it would shoot up farther along the length of the room, letting loose the blast as it traveled along a near-180 degree angle, burning a large black rut in the delicate fabric up to the crater it blasted in the wall that cut it short. Hmm…yes, that looked much better. It really added to the place. Now…oh, that coffee table. I'd long-since tired of looking at it. So, one Shadow Claw later, and one had two halves of a table flung across the room from the upper-cut I delivered. Ah…much better. But then that TV looked rather out of place…well, I'd just have to fix that! I charged up a Shadow Ball and flung it at the device, exploding it and sending sizable chunks of plastic and glass still connected to circuitry of some kind all throughout the living room. The air had a sour smell of burning in it now…perfect. My favorite kind. I only wish that there was a perfume set up like to smell like it.

You see where I was going? The place was hideous…it needed some changing. _Serious _changing. And who better to call than little ol' me with the eye of a Hollywood director planning out the opening scene for his blockbuster movie debut? It all had to be perfect: annihilate that, slice apart this, completely mangle them, burn beyond recognition those…one could say that I was wrecking the place, but they just didn't have the eye of an interior designer like I did. That ultra-neon blue in my eye wasn't just for looks, you know - it could spot these things! There needed to be a gorge in the wall like so, and the carpet had to be burned back approximately yay far…oh, and those pictures. That one of Barry and his parents, and there of Barry as a young one, and there…ugh! Hideous - like a Muk had barfed on the wall. Had to get rid of those right away. Hell, why not just level the whole wall? It was so out of place anyway. Dark Pulse here, Shadow Ball there, another Dark Pulse…wait for the dust to clear…ah. Perfect! Beautiful.

And, as an added bonus, now I had easy access to Barry's room, which I couldn't _wait _to decimate. At this point, Barry really didn't seem to have much interest in his room…then again, Barry didn't seem to have much interest in living, either, so I guess it doesn't count. Was he ever in luck that the world-famous home decorator Darkrai was in town! I made sure to leave the PC in his room untouched, however - I had plans for that later. Other than that, the whole room could go to hell, which is exactly where I intended to send it.

You know, I take back what I said earlier: I _did _feel bad about killing Barry's mother so abruptly…that is, before I decided to start laying waste to her house. She seemed to me the kind of woman that would get a nervous tick until she got that particular spot of dirt off the wall, or one who would lose sleep knowing the dishes weren't done. She took great pride in her home. As I worked, she was probably rolling back and forth in the watery grave I had sent her to, knowing the place she had worked so hard to keep flawless was being violated in such a way. I can only imagine the expression she would've worn if she saw it now. Too bad her face was now a fine black mist throughout the kitchen; the look she'd have put on it would have been priceless. Some people just can't appreciate the eye of an artist, I tell you!

Once I was finished with my renovating, I took a moment to hover from room to room, examining my work. The entire place was a wreck; countless Night Slashes and Shadow Claws had cut innumerable gouges into the walls and even ceilings, shredding through drywall and wood alike like it was made out of tissue paper, the wallpaper now merely shreds of blue clinging about the black-charred structures they'd laid claim to. The floors…ha. It looked like someone had tried to make a farming field out of it, there were so many slashes and ruts dug out of them. You could fall through down to the basement, if you weren't careful; that room was such a disaster anyway that I didn't even need to do anything to it. Furniture - be it a TV or a couch or bed - were totally decimated and borderline nonexistent, merely bits and pieces of black-smoldering debris littering the floors, some fabric or wiring occasionally clinging to the sides like shattered digits in need of amputation. The one and only thing in the entire house that wasn't completely unrecognizable: Barry's PC. As this completed step two of my little scheme, said device had a special purpose in step three: luring in the prey for whom the trap was meant.

I waited to turn back into Barry until I was looking at myself in the monitor of Barry's PC, where I got the peculiar and somewhat grotesque sight of my face bending and morphing to take up the image of Barry's, with whom I shared not a drop of similarity. Staring at his face after it replaced mine, I felt…dirty. Like I needed to take about fourteen showers to get rid of the grime that sight had somehow layered me with. How very unnerving it was to see one's features bend and twist like that…oh well. It didn't really matter to me; I was going to need a shower anyway, what with all the blood and gore I was going to be splattered with, so with that in mind, I reached back into Barry's mind, pulled out the information I needed, and used it to navigate my way about activating and managing the PC I had gone out of my way to spare.

Using Barry's mind as a sort of field manual, I was able to plug into the PC, go about the main screen like nobody's business, and activate the communicator-feature that each of its kind was installed with, plugging into it what Barry recalled as Palmer's personal PC address over at the Battle…Frontier? Zone? Whatever it was, I was ringing his PC. According to Barry's memories, Palmer only left his PC on when he was available, and the "ringing" symbol on the screen indicated that it was indeed on and receiving my call. Excellent - as it was ringing, I took a moment to add to my appearance a bit, tugging on Barry's hair to mess it up and taking one of his sleeves and ripping it off to give the image of high amounts of physical activity, like Barry had been doing a lot lately and straining himself quite a bit, presumably as he fought something. It had long-since gotten dark out, and the lack of lights in the room along with the destruction to what little was visible adding a sinister sort of feel to the whole thing. It actually took on what one might expect to see in a scary film of some kind.

That was the theme for tonight: Palmer was going to get thrown into a real-life horror movie. Now, for the star of the show…

Speak of the devil, the screen shifted to show a man setting down in the chair to what had to be the PC in whatever room it was in, the similarities between him and Barry unmistakable, even to the most untrained of eyes - it didn't take a genius to figure out who I was talking to. "Hello?" he said pleasantly, an instant before he figured out who he was looking at; his features briefly flickered to surprise and delight before shifting to concern and suspicion, not only realizing who he saw, but how he looked. The Barry he saw looked like he'd been through an ordeal of some magnitude. "…Barry? What-"

"Thank Arceus I got through," "I" said hurriedly, acting as though I simply couldn't afford to wait - my life depended on moving quickly. "D-dad, I…I-I don't know what to do, man, I-I mean….I-I tried to fight it, I-I swear I did, b-but…oh my Arceus…!"

"Whoa, Barry, slow down," Palmer said with raised hands, alarm evident - if he at all planned on seeing his son, it most certainly wasn't in such a state! "What's happening? Are you okay-"

"There's no time!" I cut him off, purposely making Barry's voice crack in the arch to his tone, eyes wide with fright and urgency. "I need he- you've gotta help me. Y-you've gotta, man, I-I-I tried everything, and it just k-keeps coming! I-it's…it already got mom. He won't let me go. I-I can't fight it…he's too much. I can't stop him…" I brought my hands to my head, gripping it as if trying to crush it between my hands - at this point, I had zoned into Barry's conscience and examined his mental state, gauging how he would react accordingly. You could say that I was using Barry's mind to interact with Palmer. "He's in my head…fucking with me, man…oh _Arceus, _this is messed up! Why does he want to screw me up so bad? What did I ever do to him? _What's his fucking problem?"_

Palmer replied - I know he must have, after such an act - but I couldn't quite focus on his words at the moment. Instead, I just felt…angry. In all reality, this was me who was talking, and in the particular choice of wording I'd used, it applied for me as well. I had the very same questions on my mind; why did Barry want to ruin my life like he did? Why did he take away everything I had come to care about? I had no quarrel with him, and he didn't with me. Why did he wrong me so? What did I ever do to him? What was his fucking problem?

The answer, I concluded - something which Barry could not, for the sake of my spectacle - was simple: _it's because he's human._

…fuck this. Time to wrap it up.

I came back to reality at the sight of a near-panicked Palmer hastily speaking in an urgent tone, speech directed to his son who was, in all honesty, far beyond the capacity of communicating with someone from the outside world. While Barry babbled on hopelessly, insisting that he shouldn't listen, I had another message for him. Abruptly I snapped around to face the darkness behind me, signaling a stop in Palmer's little speech as I pretended to be listening for some kind of noise. Silence ensured, bar the hum of the PC itself, revealing that there was, of course, no noise. But Palmer didn't need to know that, right? That would ruin all the fun.

I allowed the tense silence to ensure until I deemed it long enough, morphing the very lower half of my body back into Darkrai form, though I kept it very subtle that I had changed at all - for one, it looked like the base of my legs simply cut off, which from Palmer's end could simply be the darkness looming over my form. He couldn't see from his angle that it was something inhuman that particular part of him had changed into, and that it gave me the ability to float again. He couldn't see it anyway, because my lower half was under the monitor's range of vision, at this point. Without warning I dropped to the floor in a swift motion, allowing a noise of "surprise" to escape my throat. Using my lower half, I began to hover backwards, though very choppily, giving the impression that I was not floating but in fact being dragged by the legs by something hidden in the darkness, arm stretched out to claw at the floor dramatically. All the while, I was frantically trying to escape my so-called assailant, putting on quite the facade of panic and franticness, if I do say so myself - the terrified look, the shrieking way I gabbled things like "help me!" and "it's got me!" and even "I don't want to die!"…oh yes, that was the stuff, right there. The look on Palmer's face as he yelled into the screen, watching his son get dragged away to his presumable demise…perfect. Exactly what I was looking for.

For the grand finale, with my shoulders, head, and outstretched arms being the only parts of Barry currently visible, I reached back my one arm so I could grasp out frantically for the PC screen with the other, as if making one last desperate attempt to escape. In this case, though, it didn't work - morphing the arm hidden by darkness back into my actual arm, I reached back towards myself to clamp a hand around my throat, making it seem like something had grabbed me and, without warning, shot back into the darkness, abruptly cutting off any noises I had been making prior. Just for good measure, I molded myself back into the shadows, thus rendering myself completely invisible, if I wasn't already. Now I just had to wait for his reaction.

The result: priceless. Hahaha….you know, I actually thought he was going to start crying, he looked so flustered, trying to call out to the boy that had absolutely no way of answering him, in real life or the image I was trying to fulfill…hehe…you know what? I _definitely _wish I had a camera. If I had just one frame of that look to accompany me, my future in the darkness would never be short of a chortle or two. Oh well; I suppose memories would just have to do.

Whatever Palmer had in mind for action that I could see, I was going to have to wait to find out…forever. Just as abruptly as the boy had vanished within, a blob of purple energy crackling with black arcs came lancing out of the dark like a missile from a fighter plane, headed directly for the one thing in the house that hadn't been completely demolished. Right on cue, the PC monitor exploded, a bright flash filling the room accompanying the zapping noise of shattering circuitry as it was still active, momentarily blinding me until the dark energy swallowed up the source of it and scorched it with its intense presence, sending hot, blackened shrapnel flying across the length of the room.

The last thing that Palmer got to see was a Shadow Ball headed straight at him before the connection, ever so dramatically, was cut. Just like an Arceusdamn horror movie.

I had really outdone myself this time. As soon as the PC ceased to exist, I exploded into laughter, allowing myself a moment to bask in my triumph and wallow in Barry's futile attempts to warn his father of his fate, as if oblivious the PC was completely destroyed. It was like what people would do while watching a scary film, trying to inform the main character of their impending demise…I could even imagine a group gathered around my reality contained within the walls of a TV screen, vainly trying to warn Palmer, trying to make a difference by sheer force of will…their cries would go unheeded. My audience could do nothing, just as the boy I had engulfed could do nothing. They were all powerless. I was Arceus - the world was my puppet, and I held the strings.

No one could stop me now. _No one._

…perhaps I couldn't be stopped. But I suppose that it doesn't take a full stop to knock a train off the rails.

* * *

From where I stood outside the house, admiring the subtlety of my work and the inability to notice the inside from outside, it all looked so perfect. The scene was set, the stage was ready, and the tone was determined. The only thing I had to do - the one piece of the play missing - was wait for the star of the show to arrive. Palmer had quite a selection of pokemon in his repertoire, as Barry's memories informed me, and one of them was a Dragonite, which are all notoriously fast fliers. He would likely shoot right over after that little scene played out, and it would probably take all of…oh, twenty, maybe thirty minutes, if he went straight from the Battle Zone to Twinleaf. He'd come barging in, guns blazing, intent on saving the day and riding off into the sunset with his son, only to realize that he'd walked head-first into the maws of the king of nightmares.

He had no idea what he was getting himself into. When he showed up, I was going to toy with his senses until he broke like a plank of wood and begged for mercy, all with his son as a witness to his agony. Oh yes…tonight would be a night to remember.

Turns out, I was right…but not in the way I had intended.

I had positioned myself off to the side of the house in the shadows of the trees, idly watching the horizon as I zoned out, allowing time to pass by more freely as I awaited my prey to present itself to me on a silver platter. I mused on what method I would tear Palmer down before I saw something - a speck of black scraping against the horizon line as the sun set a ways off to the east.

I grinned in delight…then frowned. There were wings flapping - I could see them more and more defined as the shape approached, and as it did so, I could see they weren't Dragonite wings. Far too large for the body to be Dragonite wings - too feathery. Not at all shaped correctly. Besides…that was fast - _too _fast. Not nearly enough time had passed for Palmer to have arrived yet. If that was the case, then someone else was approaching. If it wasn't Palmer, who was it? The coward wouldn't have called for assistance to check it out, would he? No…according to Barry, he was hardly the type to call on others to do his bidding. That shape was most definitely headed this way, though…I could see the form of a rider on its back.

As they began to descend in the area that made up Twinleaf about a hundred meters off, I knew they were here for something and that it would get in the way. It was going to be difficult to get things done without screaming being heard by passerby's…dammit, someone was intruding on my plans. Who the fuck was that?

Deciding it would be best to see the arrival stayed away from my to-be hunting ground, I morphed to Barry's form, leaned up against the side of the house I stood guard to, and waited. If he approached, I would promptly send him away. Simple as that.

As luck would have it, it seemed that the person was intent on not only head straight for me, but do so with his pokemon out - the trainer in question came marching up at a casual pace with hands stuffed in his pockets, a cold expression on his face that matched the one plastered on the features of the burly Honchkrow that walked semi-awkwardly along behind him like an obedient mutt awaiting orders from its master. Everything I needed to know about the purplette was plastered right there across his surly face and radiating off of him in the form of arrogance, frigidity, and bitterness: he was a high-and-mighty asshole that A: didn't care what you thought, B: would tell you off in a heartbeat and C: was disgusted at the prospect at looking at anyone not at his _exceptional _skill level. I could read the bastard like a pop-up book designed for Zubats (which have no eyes, by the way). It was all presented to me in neon highlights on a flashing bulletin board over his head. As complicated as I'm sure he wished he was, the truth was the truth: you could see through the guy like a plane of glass.

My expression molded into a scowl; I could already tell I especially didn't like this human. I could also tell that he intended to enter the house I had positioned myself in front of, if his course held true. Damn…what the hell did he want? Couldn't he tell I was in the middle of something? And what was with the Honchkrow? Killing the both of them was going to be more of a hassle, if they decided to make nuisances of themselves…

I guess my foolproof plan had just hit its first snag.

The trainer stopped in his walking for a moment, his Honchkrow immediately snapping to a stop in unison, not daring to bump into its master. The boy turned his head to look up at the house I stood out of, lip curling in displeasure - his muttering of "ugly place" didn't go unnoticed by me, who of course could presumably live here, and technically did. Then, after a moment more of disdainful observation, the boy decided to finally pay me any heed, though his surly expression never changed; you'd think he was talking to a sack of rotting meat. "You Palmer's kid?"

Good eye - at least he wasn't as stupid as he looked. "Depends on who's asking," I responded coolly, not at all interested in what he wanted. All that mattered to me was that he got out of here by the time Palmer actually arrived…speaking of which, why would he be looking for Barry?

"_I'm _asking," the guy responded curtly - a memory in Barry's mind tripped that allowed the both of us to place a name to the boy…"Paul." Yuck…what a bland name. He looked like a "Paul," too. At a wave of his hand, his Honchkrow marched right up in front of him, taking up a stance like it was about to attack. "Damn near impossible to track you down, you know. Figured you'd be here." He cast another disdainful look over to "my" house, as if I was just the sort to live in such a dump.

I arched my eyebrow at him, not moving from my spot in front of the door. What, did Barry go and actually call this asshole? Set up a date for a dual? I reached into Barry's mind for the information, receding with a much more defined scowl than before. That little runt...he'd planned on catching Cresselia, then having a battle with his decided idol - that arrogant piece of dirt over there with the Honchkrow - to wow him and gain admiration from a "truly powerful trainer." Tch…just like Barry to pull a stunt like that. And now of all times, his ignorant desire for fame and admiration was getting in the way of my revenge against him. Asshole just didn't know when to quit.

Paul stood there a while, eying me expectantly, frown growing more and more defined as I felt his irritation and impatience grow accordingly as he watched me stare at him, unimpressed. Finally, he snapped over at me, "Are you going to call your pokemon or what, idiot?"

Like as I may to tell him off, I wouldn't accomplish much by doing so, instead replying, "No."

For a second, Paul's unshakable confidence wavered…just before it was replaced with anger, as if I had no right not to battle him. "I knew it - I knew you'd chicken out. You don't have a Cresselia at all, do you? In fact, what pokemon _do _you have?"

Unimpressed by his little fume, I just shrugged again, totally indifferent. "I don't have any."

At that, Paul actually let out a laugh - it was a laugh alright, but it was far from a humorous one; more like a bark from a dog than anything. "Ha! I knew it: you aren't just weak, you're _nothing! _You don't even have a single pokemon? Oh, that's rich - priceless! You talk a good talk, but in the end, you're just a spineless _wimp!"_

Once more I just stood there, looking at him, unmoved by his insults and name-calling. Ha - he had no idea who he was talking to. Like as he may to think he was on top of things, this guy was way in over his head. You know, I almost wished he'd say something about me being a monster or whatever so I'd have an excuse to kill him; I might just do it anyway, just for the hell of it. What a jackass. Just the sort of person I'd expect Barry to see strength in. Hell, even _he _was feeling disillusioned with this prick.

Paul stood there a while longer, looking amused before that faded and he started to approach, stopping when he realized I wasn't going to move. "…well?"

I arched an eyebrow, head cocking to the side a bit in question. "Sorry, no well here. You may want to start digging."

Paul scoffed, rolling his eyes, as if the little person that I was didn't really think anything - I was just making noise. Cuz he was just that far above me. "Funny. You gonna let me in or what?"

"Depends on what 'what' is," I replied coolly, eying him like one would eye a pile of dog waste on the sidewalk. Because really, that's all I was really looking at.

Paul scowled. "You don't have any right being smart with me, asshole. I don't have time for losers."

"Me, neither." My mildy amused expression solidified. "That's why I'm not moving."

At this point, Paul's expression turned murderous. "…what did you say to me?"

"A couple of things, really." I glanced down at my knuckles, suddenly deciding my fingernails - Barry's, rather - were far more interesting than looking at the ugly mug in front of me. "I'd repeat it for you, but that would be like playing Beethoven's Fifth for a Magikarp. Hardly worth the effort; you wouldn't understand, anyway."

Haha - you'd think I'd spit on the bible, Paul looked so pissed. Naturally, the first thing he did was fall back a few steps, letting his Honchkrow stand closest to me. "Alright then, smart guy. How's this: move or my pokemon'll waste you. Whattya think of _that?"_

I scoffed, unmoved by the threat flung at me, not even looking up from admiring my nails. Really, I'd rather look at them - far less annoying. Much better company. "Just like a coward to recruit his underlings to do his dirty work-"

Then, the guy actually surprised me with what he said next: "Honchkrow, Ominous Wind!"

Thrown off guard, I barely had time to widen my eyes in shock before a wave of black washed over me, sending me tumbling backwards from the force of the foul-smelling black aura that bowled me over like a twig against a tidal wave. I normally wouldn't have even felt the move, but in my currently all-human state, my body and abilities were identical to that of Barry's, hence why it not only sent me flying, but induced massive bodily pain on me, specifically in the front the wave had hit me. My entire front felt like one big road rash, the skin on the fronts of my arms stained a purplish-black hue from the energy. Every cell in my face was screaming in agony…I couldn't believe it - that son of a bitch just attacked me! _"Fuck!"_

About five meters or so away, I heard a harsh laugh radiate out to me, no doubt from the boy that I just _cherished _right about now as he watched me painfully force myself upright. "See?" he crowed, patting his Honchkrow with a smug expression. "You don't mess around with me, wimp. I don't have time for losers. Your _dad,_ though…maybe _he'll _be a bit more of a challenge. _He _actually has pokemon." And with that, Paul reached for the door, grabbed the handle…then yelped in alarm when it broke off its hinges and slammed to the ground. His expression went from surprise to one of dreadful realization as he looked at the inside of the house - the slashed walls, the ravaged carpets, the destroyed furniture. He saw the whole scene I had set up, and when he turned back to me - fear spiking when he realized I had, somehow, managed to come not an inch away from him - and froze when he read my expression.

Through the black and purple stains on my face, Paul could see my grin - the white teeth, the amber eyes flashing in sinister delight, a tiny spark beneath them bubbling with concern at the knowledge that he knew my secret. _He knew. _He could ruin _everything._

Time for Paul the asshole to disappear.

Working on impulse, of course the first thing Paul did was try to shove me backwards out of his face, his expression anything but smug - unfortunately for him, I had long since tapped into my Darkrai-powers and brought it out to access, thus creating Barry with all the potency of a Darkrai hardened by the ages. When Paul shoved me, it was like pushing off of a brick wall. The only thing he managed to do was push himself away, rather than me. Of course, the next thing he did: jump aside to give his pokemon a good view. "Honchkrow, Wing Atta-"

Before Paul could even finish his sentence, I became a blur, shooting over to the Honchkrow in the amount of time it took its trainer to get its name out of his mouth. By the time he'd said "Wing", I reared back an arm and planted it soundly into the face of the avian pokemon, knocking it clear off its feet and back a full meter as it sprawled onto its back, momentarily dazed and trying to figure out what the hell just happened. In the meantime, I walked - it looked more like running, with how fast I was moving; Darkrai-powered legs could move pretty fast - over to the pokemon, stepping past its outstretched wings as it looked up at me, stunned by the blow. Then, I looked over to Paul, flashing him a smile that came out highlighted as white teeth shone through purplish black-stained lips. "Aww...poor little pokemon needs a hand. How about a _foot?"_

Paul's frightened and confused expression turned to horror as I raised up a foot, angled it over, and brought it flat down on his Honchkrow's face.

The result was spectacular and gruesome: with all the force I was capable of bringing out through Barry's body using my power, it was no wonder the creature didn't stand a chance. My heel came into contact with the creature's beak, and rather than simply bouncing off of the overly-hard structure like any human foot would, mine just kept moving downward. Under the force of the blow, the Honchkrow's beak broke like it was made out of cracker breading, caving inward as my foot forced it down into its head, shattering completely. The sole of my shoe continued down in a flash, and in the time it took to blink, I had not only made contact with the creature's head, but crushed it completely - there was a bone-jarringly wet _crunch _as its skull was crushed flat, infection-like brains spurting out through either end of its head like I had stepped on a particularly plump and juicy insect, spraying gray matter out to the sides a good meter or so like it had squirted out of its ears. When I raised my foot up a second later, it was dripping with blood, red reaching all the way up to my shin and running down onto the feathered corpse beneath me, dribbling red on its black-blue plumage.

Just what every kill needed: a little texture. Mmm...crunchy. Always did prefer it over the regular peanut butter...I could go for a sandwich. Maybe after I slaughtered this guy.

Naturally, Paul looked like a combination of shock and the urge to vomit. He did neither, though, instead reaching to his belt and flinging out every pokeball he had, unleashing his whole team against me. He had no idea what I was, at this point, but he knew one thing: I needed to be stopped. _Now. _"You're so dead!"

Before my eyes, a wall of white energy erupted out of the quintuplet of pokeballs that split open and began to form out into the shapes of his team members, all of whom looked quite competent. All in front of me, the energy molded into the forms of a bulky Electivire, a stocky Aggron, a plump Gastrodon, a particularly twitchy Ninjask, and a rather graceful-looking Frosslass, who immediately set upon me a look of curiosity melded with suspicion - interesting; could she see what I really was beneath my disguise? Her expression changed rather quickly at the sight of her comrade-in-arms, however. Hehehe...was that a spike of fear I tasted just now~?

No time to enjoy the moment; setting his sights back on me, Paul gritted his teeth - no doubt attempting to drown out his growing fear with anger - and stabbed a finger at me, ordering "Kill the fucker!" to the team he'd just released.

All at once, all the pokemon presented to me attacked.

Naturally being the fastest and the quickest to the draw, the Ninjask appeared to twitch sharply as it accessed its Speed-Boost ability, its wings seemingly nonexistent a brief instant before it disappeared entirely - it was like it turned invisible. I knew better, however, and rather than gawk and try to figure out where it went, I did the first thing that came to me and melted into the ground in a flash, fusing with the shadows under my feet - an ability that would come in handy, now that daylight was fading. I could hear the sound of wood being slashed and a confused buzzing noise above me, which of course reminded me - dammit, Palmer would be here soon. Better make this quick.

Even as I shifted around under the shadows of the grass to get myself into position, I could hear the confusion being sorted out - not by the trainer, but by one of the pokemon I was up against. _"Think fast, guys - it's not human. It's in the shadows...it's gotta be a Darkrai. Watch your feet - it's under us, moving around! Gastrodon, Torterra, watch it - keep alert! it could jump right up from under you!"_

Hmm...seemed to me that the Frosslass was a bit of a ringleader here. Appropriate, since that idiot Paul wasn't doing anything, and _someone _needed to on top of things. They would all be my target, at some point...guess she better be first.

I angled over towards the source of her voice, casually meandering about the darkness despite the frantic voices going on overhead. They couldn't see me, nor could they hurt me, and by the time they figured out where I was, it would be too late. Hehe...time to get things going. I fused back into reality, appearing directly beneath the Frosslass that was hovering in the air, completely unaware of the Shadow Claw being prepared-

Just as I was unaware of the Fury Cutter that raked across my back, causing me to curve my spine and howl in agony. If anyone's ever been hit by a Bug-type move, they'll be able to attest to the fact that Bug-moves fucking _hurt,_ even if they're not delivered by the scythe-claws of a Ninjask. The buzzing noise pounding at my head from those damn wings put into perspective _exactly _who was at fault here. Damn ninja wasp...

My surprise attack derailed, the Frosslass whom I had intended to strike snapped a look down and grinned, waving her sleeved arm at me in a graceful motion, a wave of little white specks racing towards me from above. It didn't look it, but the wind fueling the specks was quite frigid - enough so that, upon contact with my skin, frost began to form, little icicle stretching down from my arms and down the tip of my mane where the frost streaked down my body, a sheen of glassy blue forming over the tops of my body parts. Immediately I began to shiver, attempting to bring my arms closer to me, meeting the sound of crackling, grinding ice as I sluggishly attempted to bend my limbs, floating sluggishly to the side. The Icy Wind had most definitely done its work at slowing me down.

But that was just the beginning; suddenly appearing in front of me - its movements made the insect too fast to follow with the naked eye - the Ninjask doubled over slightly as its wings appeared as a blur behind it, unleashing a Screech right in my face. My senses were overwhelmed with the deafening shriek that filled my skull, rattling my brains around my head like pinballs - I rose my arms to cover my ears, but by the time they arrived, it was too late to do anything. Deaf to the Bug's shrieks, the Gastrodon angled its head over towards me and fired off a column of swirling water, the Water Pulse blasting me dead-center even as the Electivire roared out its name to pump a Thunderbolt straight through me.

The combination of moves was devastating: amplified by the water, the electricity tore through my body like jagged harpoons, lancing pain up and down all of my limbs and raging fire along the length of my spine, combined with the disorientation gathered up in my head from the Water Pulse's dizzying effect, played hell with my senses; I howled in pain, but not only could I barely hear myself, I couldn't tell what way was up. If I was falling out of the air, it was impossible to tell; for all I knew, the world was being swirled through a blender.

Out of the chaos came a hammer-burst of clarity - that is, the pain of a massive Aggron fist colliding with my head, knocking me back to my senses...well, before I smashed into the tree and slammed to the ground, anyway, at which point my brain turned to mush again, stars dancing in front of my vision like children frolicking in the fields. I couldn't tell my surroundings, but I had enough sense left in me to use my ability to mold back into the darkness - the steady relief from my pained physical form, plus a rapidly solidifying orientation, signaled that I had found something dark to disappear into. Good thing the tree cast a shadow like it did, or I'd be toast.

Shaking my head to clear it - or at least, perform the equivalent of such in the shapelessness of the darkness - I grunted in annoyance, already quite fed up with their little tag-team antics, effective though they were. As if them getting in my way wasn't bad enough, they had to go and be _good_ at it. I could already hear Paul praising his team, informing them to hit me harder next time and wrap things up...asshole didn't have any right telling them what to do. He was as incompetent as they came, letting them do all the work so the thrall master could get the credit. Trainer scum...that son of a bitch was _so _dead.

The trouble was that, if I decided to stick my head up out of the shadows again, I would be too. As much as I hate to admit it, whatever training Paul had decided to put his slaves through had done the trick: they were not only rock-hard as individuals, their ability to work as a team complimented their already effective attack strategy. Not to mention the fact that that stupid Ninjask would cut off all of my attacks because it was so damn fast...I needed a distraction. They had my sneaking tactic exploited already; I needed to catch them off guard. Strike from an angle they'd never expect. One they'd have difficulty coping with...

Overhead, the pokemon force eagerly awaited my arrival, shifting slightly as they scanned the ground for signs of movement. The Ninjask hovered a few meters off the ground, outline blurry, wings invisible, head twitchily snapping this way and that as it looked over the area. The Electivire started to pace now, fists sparking and glowing as it walked anxiously back and forth, the suspense and anticipation playing hell with it's nerves. The Gastrodon and Aggron were silent and poised for attack, occasionally glancing at the Frosslass, who hovered overhead, ready to announce orders at a moment's notice, "dress" swaying in an invisible breeze. The Torterra seemed most at ease, turning it's head with an air of boredom, casually observing it's surroundings. It didn't seem at all too worried about being attacked - it was, after all, the largest and probably most capable pokemon present. Who in their right mind would target _it?_

That was the point: no one in their right mind would. And I think we can all agree that I'm not in my right mind.

The way the shadow from the tree on it's back made it perfect for me to travel up it's feet over it's side, a pair of three-fingered claws reaching out to grip onto the branches while the rest of me materialized. Fortunately, the Torterra didn't seem to have any sensory receptors in its tree, and the movement I did stir the leaves with didn't give away my position. Excellent...this position gave me a good view of the battlefield, plus all the pokemon present...I considered picking off Paul, but no...I'd save him for last. He deserved to watch his precious team slaughtered before he died by my hand.

The Ninjask, damn its ability, was flitting about like the overly-twitchy insect it was, head snapping this way and that, sometimes appearing to simply disappear only to reappear a few feet away, outline blurry and wings totally invisible. Catching blue out of the corner of its compound eyes, it snapped its head towards my hiding spot-

-only to catch the intensity of a Mean Look dead-on the instant its insectoid eyes met my blue one. Every muscle in its body instantaneously froze as if by magic, dropping to the ground as if its bones were turned to concrete. Naturally, this drew quite a bit of attention in the form of four turned heads...though, in the Gastrodon's case, its gaze was met with a splash of black energy that washed over its face, evoking a shriek of pain as its eyes were soldered shut from the heat of the blast, now beginning to convulse as it attempted to thrash in pain, held back by its own girth.

All eyes not frozen by Mean Look or blasted out of existence by Dark Pulse followed the beam to the source, immediately determining that I was hiding in Torterra's tree. Panicking, the Frosslass fired an Icy Wind directly into the tree in question, sending frost-stricken leaves and branches snapped off by the gust tearing off away from the tree they'd been clinging to. Both Grass and Ground-types, the frigid gust that blistered the Torterra's back was particularly painful, hence why it roared in agony and, in an act of pain-stricken panic, opened up its mouth to unleash the Solarbeam it had been charging all this time at the source of the attack, which hit the Frosslass head-on. As the column of gold energy collided with her and sent the Ghost/Ice-type flying back, the Aggron roared a curse and slammed an armored hand down on the Torterra's head to knock some sense into it, yanking it up to look it dead in the eye, fuming that it needed to _"Knock it the hell off!" _All the while, the Gastrodon continued to writhe in pain, the Ninjask remained as rigid as a board on the ground, compound eyes scanning the battlefield helplessly. Frosslass pulled herself up off the ground, hovering upwards sluggishly, shaking her head to clear it of the disorientation.

Amused by the scene, the Electivire chortled some deep-throated chuckles, opening its mouth to let off a round of wise-crack remarks to his comrades.

Unfortunately for him, he would never get the chance. Much to the Frosslass's discredit, the only thing her Icy Wind hit was the Torterra - immediately after Dark Pulsing the Gastrodon, I had disappeared back into the shadows, since I knew the first thing they'd do was shoot where the attack came from. In the chaos that ensured, I was able to materialize in the shadow back behind the Electivire and, just as he opened his mouth to say something, I reached a hand past his neck, came around, and pulled a trio of purple-black glowing claws back into his neck. The pokemon's voice cracked as the air was pinched off in its throat, eyes widening as it brought its hands up to the trio of dark-powered blades sinking into his flesh. It raised its shoulders up as it prepared an electric attack to pump through me, but it wasn't fast enough; in a swift yank, my Night Slash came out through the back of his neck, a geyser of red erupting out of the hole where the neck and head used to be attached, head thumping heavily down not a meter away. The headless body balanced on its feet for a split second before its tails limply hit the ground, flopping flat on his face...or rather, where his face would have been. _One down._

A collective shriek of rage and grief sounded off, and the Aggron took massive steps towards me, only to realize that the blinded Gastrodon was facing him directly, thinking perhaps he was the source of the group's pain. Before he could protest, a column of water blasted directly into his midsection, evoking a roar of pain as it was knocked clear off its feet, colliding with the ground with such force that the ground beneath it trembled and, in one spot, cracked. Of course, the Gastrodon figured out it had hit someone besides me by now, and was in the midst of letting out a frantic stream of apologies before I placed my hand over its face to silence it, firing a Dark Pulse into said region point-blank. Its neck limply flopped down across its chest, the end of its neck smoldering a sinister black aura, head nonexistent: my personal thanks for keeping that metal dinosaur off my back. _That's two..._

Shrieking a high-pitched scream of rage, Frosslass regained orientation and lanced through the air to strike me, fist glowing a sinister black-purple a split second before she disappeared. I recognized the move early on, since she wasn't the only one who knew Shadow Punch, and rather than try to dodge - futile, considering the nature of the move on approach - I gathered up the beginning of a Shadow Ball in my arms, angling it over to face the direction she had come flying at me from. When she materialized once again and landed a punch to my cheek, she ran head-long into the awaiting attack, which promptly exploded in both of our faces. We were both send flying back, and while I had received not one but two bouts of damage to my person, neither of them were particularly effective, the former of which only managing to sent a lance of pain through my jaw and leaving nothing more than a soreness in my cheek afterward; the move delivered by me left almost no effect at all, bar the vaguely black discoloration on my mane where the energy hit.

Frosslass was considerably worse off than I, her front scorched a purple color that made her entire front look as though it was one massive bruise. I only got a brief look at her before she went shooting off into the foliage, streaking a trail of black smoke behind her.

Just as quickly as she disappeared, however, Frosslass came shooting straight back out of the bush she'd been launched into, scarcely even giving me time to snap a look at her before I was floating back as fast as I could, attempting to avoid the banshee on my tail...and I say that in the most literal of fashions: Frosslass are banshees. Or whatever equals out to banshees in an ice storm...what are those monsters of myth called? Windigo? That's what came to mind as I saw her: features all rage and screaming at the top of her lungs, voice as shrill and sharp and icy as a plane of shattered ice over a sub-zero lake bed, winds howling, ferocious cold attempting to overcome the frigid might of her fury... oddly enough, fiery mad amidst a tableau of total blizzard-y might. She was pretty freaky looking, if I say so myself, and trust me when I say I know freaky.

Needless to say I backed up quickly. I wasn't afraid; I just didn't want her anywhere near me. Ever. Especially not now.

This proved to be a challenge in itself, as it seemed that wherever I went, she went to just as fast; she couldn't have been three inches behind me, and I was flying as fast as I could, making sharp turns up, down, to the side, all of my turns at almost complete 90 degree angles, and at no point did the distance between us ever grow larger than three inches. I could feel her scream slamming against my conscious like the bite of a frosty wind, the spot on my back where she was closest beginning to prickle from the drop in air temperature immediately around her...it got my heart pumping, _that's_ for sure. You might even say that, for a second, I had started to panic; no matter what way I went, she was right behind me like a shadow, ready to freeze me alive beneath her glacial might. She was pretty scary...not as scary as me, but definitely pretty scary.

With a screaming banshee on my tail, every movement being a possibility for her to turn me into the world's most realistic Darkrai popsicle...it didn't leave me with a lot of room to maneuver. Then, catching sight of the remainders of Paul's team watching me fly for my life, I got an idea, abruptly shooting straight downwards, Frosslass right on my heels (if I had heels). I plummeted towards the ground like a rocket until I was barely a foot from the ground, at which point I abruptly shot up and set a course perpendicular to the earth, grass blades tickling my underside as I flew for all I was worth, all the while just out of reach of the Sheer Cold howling not a foot behind me. At this rate, however, it didn't look like I'd be able to avoid it for much longer...

I angled my path over so I was headed right for the rest of Frosslass's teammates...specifically Ninjask. While I had no doubt his compound eyes were locked dead on me, still struck hard by the effects of my Mean Look, he was incapable of moving or otherwise getting out of our way as we streaked towards him like a black and white torpedo. Catching sight of her helpless teammate in the wake of her icy vengeance, of course the first thing that Frosslass did was cut her move short so that when we passed over him, Ninjask wouldn't be frozen solid. I felt a pang of relief emanate from her; she had identified my favored method of combat - using my foes against themselves - and thought that she had derailed one of my strikes against them all.

This relief only lasted a second before, in a single fluid movement, I grabbed Ninjask's arms as I passed over him, wheeled around, and used him as a club to smash Frosslass aside the head with.

Frosslass found herself tumbling through the air, the inertia from her aerial pursuit continuing to propel her forward until she caught a tree in the side, which abruptly halted her tumble through the air with a sharp_ crack - _ouch. Whether that was the tree or the pokemon, either way, it sounded quite painful. If that didn't bring a smile to my face, the way Ninjask moaned helplessly in my grasp, arms bent at unnatural angles, did. Warmed the cockles of my freakin' heart.

Aggron and Torterra didn't quite feel the same way, as they both snarled/roared/screeched a challenge. Whatever moves they were preparing halted in mid-pose, however, when I pressed my open palm against the head of their helpless companion, black arcs of energy crackling from a ready-to-form Dark Pulse, just for effect. The message was clear - "Hit me and he dies" - and though I wouldn't have guessed their intelligence none beyond that of an overripe tomato, they both received said message rather well. Good; I like to think I portrayed the message quite clearly.

Paul, on the other hand, didn't seem to get it as clearly as the others did. He chose this time - seeing as he had a smaller and more manageable number of pokemon on his roster...never mind the fact that the others were dead - to snap back into command, stabbing a finger at me accusingly, teeth gritting in determination (though it's pretty easy to have resolve when all you have to do is stand by and watch). "Go, hit him! Hyper Beam, Flash Cannon! Now!"

Though concern for their teammate's well-being had caused them to hesitate, there was no way any of them could defy a direct order given by their trainer, though they were obviously reluctant from their grimacing expressions. Whether he knew it or not, Paul had just ordered the death of his own pokemon. Heartless bastard.

With my hostage in tow, I shot up into the air to avoid the spiraling column of red and orange energy that scorched the air where I had been a moment before, exploding and letting out a dull _thump_ from the explosion in the distance. On my way into the air, I had to dodge and weave to the left and right repeatedly to avoid the flickering balls of silver light that lanced by me, popping and cracking from the energy making them as they slowly dissolved into the air. They were more numerous than the Hyper Beam Torterra had sent my way, but they were even less effective at a distance that was rapidly growing between us. When I reached a distance of about 50 meters or so, they stopped coming completely, as their owner knew it was pointless.

Hovering over the clearing before the house I had originally been hoping would keep out of sight, I glared straight down at the duo of pokemon and their incompetent trainer, the harsh blue of my eye cutting through the gathering dark like a spear through butter, goring Paul alive with the might of my hatred. I hated him; wasn't it obvious I did? He was arrogant, self-righteous, and had no respect for anything that wasn't himself. He would throw away the lives of his pokemon for a chance to so much as nick me? What kind of trainer did he think he was? How worthless did he find his servants, who would only ever serve him until death snuffed out their wills to proceed into the oblivion that awaited them? Did he even care that these were living creatures he was throwing away like nothing? Were they anything past that in his eyes - just a candy wrapper to be thrown away? Who made him Arceus so he could decide who was worth what? What made _him _so special? Why was _he _so much more valuable than everything else?

His kind of scum raised my blood beyond the boiling point. I was going to make sure he suffered before the end...but first: his punishment for calling me out on my threat.

Holding a rigid and immobile Ninjask by the head, I extended my arm out to its fullest length, and without ever looking away from the speck of Paul down below me, I unleashed the Dark Pulse I had been holding all this time and fired a column of black off into the night...straight through Ninjask's head. Or rather, it would have, if his head existed after the blast itself took form. Crackling black energy spiraled off into nothing to my right, eventually unwinding and starting to corkscrew before the energy lost focus and dissipated into the air as a sinister black haze. A split second later, gravity reclaimed Ninjask's headless body and dragged it in all its lifelessness straight down, muscles and limbs going limp and flopping mindlessly as he tumbled down to the ground.

Aggron snapped his head away quickly to avert his gaze elsewhere. Torterra roared in sorrow and anger. Frosslass, who had just raised her head off of the shrub she had been tangled into, widened her eyes in horror as she realized what she was seeing falling to the ground.

Paul didn't even flinch when the corpse of his pokemon thudded to the ground not five meters from him with a sickening crunch. It was like he didn't even care.

What a soulless, heartless monster. He had no consideration for life whatsoever and would stop at nothing to see through his petty aspirations for power.

_What about _you,_ Darkrai?_

My gaze was broken as I visibly winced, cursing the weak little voice that sneered from the corner that it had been long-since banished to. Son of a bitch. _Be silent, _I seethed, unwilling for him to be a distraction. _Shut up and watch me kill your idol like a dog.  
_

I expected some kind of response from him akin to grief, but all Barry did was glower from the corner he'd come out of and grin wickedly at me. Idiot human trying to distract me...I knew he was trying to get at me somehow. I knew he was prying at my defenses from within me. He didn't know what he was talking about - he was just blabbing and trying to hurt me.

Why, then, did his simple statement disturb me like it did?

No time to dwell on it: the battle was still in session, Frosslass was coming up at me again, and Torterra was preparing another Hyper Beam to fire. I'd deal with these other petty things later, if ever. In the meantime, I had some pokemon to kill.

Determined to close the distance between us without giving me time to counter her, Frosslass disappeared in a purple blur, flying at me in a parallel shadow dimension with a Shadow Punch on the way. Rather than hopelessly try to dodge, I cupped my hands together to get the beginning of a Shadow Ball ready, just as before when she had tried such a maneuver. I expected some variation, but Frosslass materialized back in front of me and, like before, came into contact with the Shadow Ball, which exploded in a crackling sphere of purple shadow and black electricity. Redundancy in a battle? Idiot ought to know better. Maybe I could teach her a thing or two about variety.

Just like before, the explosion damaged her far more than it did me, sending her streaking back through the air, a trail of black smoke trailing behind her. My next move took timing: while the explosion was still forming, I fused into the shadows that had spawned from the energy discharge, using the time where the explosion had washed over her to fuse into the shadows formed beneath her dress, consequently clinging to her as she flew backwards. As soon as she cleared the energy radius and had the dress opening pointed up towards the sky, I re-materialized back into reality and, in a swift movement, fired a second Shadow Ball straight down at her while we were mere inches apart. The energy washed over us again, and I repeated the process, fusing back to the shadow of her dress to follow her out of the blast to reappear and hit her with _another _Shadow Ball.

Bang, magically appear a second later, bang, spawn like a ninja, bang, ghost out of her dress, bang...by the time Frosslass hit the ground, she had quadrupled in velocity from being propelled by the blast, taken seven consecutive Shadow Balls from a distance of 50 or so meters, and was stained a permanent shade of bluish-purple before slamming to the earth in a heap.

As her body collided violently with the ground, a combination of twelve or so bones breaking all at once came together as one sickening _crack _that made my skin crawl. At the angle she had landed and the single shade of color her body had been smelted, I was unable to tell what part of her I was seeing twitch violently at me before snapping back downward like it was bent at an angle that it wasn't meant to be at; judging by the digits on the end, I presumed it was her arm, and that it had indeed been bent at an unnatural angle. Her body wasn't shaped the way I remembered it, and the trails of black smoke peeling off of her made it difficult to see what was her and what was smoke. Something else twitched lightly, and my nose was assaulted by the appalling stink of burning flesh combined with the harsh odor of darkness burns. It almost made me gag.

Instead, it made me _laugh._

The others apparently didn't find it as funny; over the sound of the two roars of agony and rage, I heard Paul bark: "Kill it! _Kill it!"_

I decided to do as he requested.

Completely overtaken with anger, Aggron trumpeted a roar and came flying at me with outstretched claws, arms the size of full-grown men and at least twice as dense. Dodging him was a simple matter of moving out of the way of the freight train of flesh and iron and angling over towards the other more vulnerable target available.

Torterra, anticipating my charge, opened its mouth like it wanted to roar, a sphere of red in its ajar mouth indicating where the Hyper Beam had centered its mini-singularity and was about to discharge. Rather than keep coming, though, I disappeared into the shadows now blanketing the ground from the sun that so carelessly left the world in the dim now consuming it. Yelping, Torterra tried best to dissipate the potent energy safely just before I materialized directly beneath the behemoth tortoise, stuck my claws into the flesh of his underbelly, and flew directly underneath him until I passed his tail, a sextuplet of red gashes ranging all the way from the base of his neck past his hind legs.

The result was spectacular. Unable to properly dissipate the energy in his mouth and overwhelmed with the sudden eruption of pain raging up from his sensitive underbelly, Torterra lost composure and, in a fit of pain, bit straight down into the Hyper Beam sphere in his mouth. His teeth went through the energy and came into contact with the singularity in the core of the sphere, which spelled disaster for our dear land-tortoise friend. See, Hyper Beam isn't just a random column of energy that blows up - the move has some science to it. Using kinetic energy to clasp the Hyper Beam into a sphere, the potent plasma is pressed more and more inward to build up "pressure," which is further gathered by creating the singularity in the center and pressing the fast-moving plasma particles together against their will to bounce off of one another, which gathered up an immense amount of energy. Rather than simply drop the energy barrier, a single side of the barrier is lowered to let the immensely-charged energy fly straight out like out of a fire hose, the sheer force in which is does giving the well-known move its considerable power. Because of all the energy needed to perform the task, however, only the most energy-ridden pokemon forms - generally final evolution forms - are able to use it, and even then they're seriously drained. That's because there's a lot of power in the move, and it has to be performed _carefully, _or it could misfire.

Which is exactly what happened here. See, Torterra would just have burned a hole through his jaw for biting the energy like he did if it wasn't for one thing: he lost his concentration from the pain, and this caused the barrier keeping the compressed plasma in place to dissipate, leaving the singularity exposed and the energy free with the force of multiple pounds of dynamite.

In a nutshell, the Hyper Beam misfired. Like a bomb. And exploded like a supernova. Not just in Torterra's face, but _in his mouth_.

The ensuring _BOOM_ was like a crack of thunder not two inches from my face; I barely had time to dissipate into the shadows before a wave of orange-tinted air washed through the space I'd been a moment before. It didn't look particularly destructive in itself, but considering the flames that puffed off of the wall of Barry's house just before they disappeared and revealed the entire wall that had been flash-scorched black, I'm sure this wasn't the case. As the now non-existent grass all along the length of a football field could attest, not to mention the treetops that had become giant limbless candles nearby.

I waited a good long while before daring to emerge, lurking in the darkness cloaking the ground (not illuminated by flames) as it felt out the ground above with one digit poking out of the blur of my body like one would poke one's big toe into a bathtub to test the water. After I had decided the air above was a temperature that wouldn't flash-bake my flesh, I emerged and looked around, neon blue eye as intense as a laser beam against the blackened landscape as I searched for Torterra.

When I found him - or rather, what was left of him - I burst out into laughter. The only part I found was his ass barely attached to his hind legs. His flesh was burned an absolute shade of black that rivaled the night sky, smoke billowing off of him like a bonfire. He looked like he was made of wax, the way he seemed melted off where his midsection abruptly ended; his stubby legs were molded horribly out of shape like candlesticks put in the microwave and crushed downward like beneath a dictionary or phonebook. And the smell - anyone that has smelled burned flesh has only a vague idea of what horrible, repugnant stench was filling the air and invading my nostrils. Smears of black grime all around were likely globs of destabilized Torterra hide splattered all over like jelly.

He was in pieces. And I was in _stitches._

As soon as I could breathe, I heard a peculiar noise to my left. And, when I looked, breathing due to laughter was again an issue. Over there a ways, propelled through the air by the force of the blast that could burn shadows to walls, was the mighty Aggron - sprawled out on the ground, massive metallic hide stained a burnt black and smoldering, pinned beneath the weight of a fallen tree. I floated over unsteadily, roaring in laughter as a second groan sounded off, followed by a twitch of a tail. _"Oh Arceus,"_ I gasped, resisting the urge to clutch my midsection and double over in laughter. _"Oh Arceus, what have we _here?"

To my query only a groan was provided, sounding not unlike a pair of rusty metal knives scraping together, lined with dull, unspeakable agony one couldn't hope to scream out - he didn't even try. Just clenched fists full of blackened earth, a writhing tail, and dull click as his metallic jaw parts came together in pain. The agony I felt coming off of him was...so..._delicious._ I always preferred fear, but I had gained a particular taste for the former of the two as of late that I couldn't help but lick my lips. Ooh, such a delectable thing, this Aggron had become!

Resisting another wave of hysterical laughter, I floated down a few inches from Aggron's face, matching the bloodshot-eyed glare with a smug, sinister grin._"What have we learned today, children,"_ I cooed like a schoolmaster to an errant child, _"about the lord of all things frightful and dark, hmm? What have we learned about fucking with Darkrai?"_

Aggron's glare wavered as his eyes sunk down slightly, as though he was seriously considering this, much to my amusement. After a long while, his gaze drifted back up to me, trying to seem angry, only proceeding in looking as miserable as I could sense he was. _"I learned,"_ he wheezed in a slurred tone, voice as rough and crackly as static electricity and sandpaper; almost comically, as he spoke, trickles of smoke wafted through his mouth. He really did look as though he'd been burned alive. _"Av learned zh...zhat...everytheeng zzey said...uv...uvout you...is true."_

Slowly, ever so slowly, my smug grin shrank and reversed until it devolved into a full-fledged scowl, neon blue eye boring into him like a jackhammer. Insolent little...I didn't want to pay the comment any heed, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't _not_ pay it heed. I couldn't help but let it...I don't know. Somehow, I got the same feeling from what he said as what Barry said...dammit, why did I still remember that? It wasn't important. I shouldn't remember. I should forget.

But why couldn't I?

_"Where is he,"_ I growled in a low tone, not bothering to look up. I could feel everything I'd ever need to know from sight - I could only sense one other recent death, and the only presence within range. Paul wasn't here. He had fled somewhere, the coward. _"Tell me where he is. Now."_

Aggron seemed dazed for a second before, after a moment, his blank expression molded into a smile - a defiant smirk of a rebellious teenager I'd become all too accustomed to seeing. Mustering up the last of his strength, Aggron raised up a charred arm, held his hand in front of my face, and rather than crush my head or deal a feeble blow, he did something worse - something that single raised digit did that no move or attack or word could ever do.

That middle finger broke whatever hold I had on him - whatever influence the darkness had was nullified by that single, arcane gesture like it was nothing at all. In that moment, sometime ungraspable and undefinable became his to control, and with nothing more than the flick of a middle finger, everything I had to put against him - my power, my strength - was rendered useless. It was incredible.

Even more incredible was there was nothing I could do to effectively counter him.

For a good, long moment, I stared at that long digit as though it was beyond my comprehension, stunned into speechlessness. Then I got angry; _very _angry. Enraged beyond words without knowing why, I let out a deep, throaty roar of fury, grabbed ahold of his arm, and twisted it - snapped his hand farther back than it was ever intended to go, shattering his metal plates and iron-hard bones like clay. But his smile never waned; when his arm bones were broken and his metal plates warped and shattered, he smiled. When his hand came clean off, he continued to smile. And when the blood left his veins and the light left his eyes, his smile never left his cold, crisp lips. The pain was gone, the defiance was gone, but there was no fear. There would never be fear. Never.

I crushed him like an insect beneath me, but he'd accomplished his task - his final act of vengeance against me. One last effort to protect his master.

But there was no way I was going to lose to the likes of _him._

* * *

Paul ran for his life.

The night air was doused in a thick silence broken only by the gasps and pants that emanated from the purple-haired boy as he ran for dear life, adrenaline running through him and, above all other things, fear. It was a powerful thing, fear, and this was especially observable in Paul in particular, who had lived all his life rejecting such a feeling and condemning it as weakness. Ironic, now that he learned first-hand what a powerful force it was.

The fear was like a thing that possessed him - it took away any of his other thoughts and directed him forcibly to one goal: survival. That was all. It shunned all other emotions, forcibly rejected his thoughts, and was even enough for him to lose awareness of the fatigue he'd otherwise be feeling now. He ran and ran - farther and faster than he ever had in his entire life, eyes bulging in terror, pants hoarsely escaping his lips and scratching his throat raw and he didn't even care. Nothing mattered now; just him, his life, and his feet. As long as he was alive and could run, he'd never care about anything else ever again.

The cool air was sharp against his hot skin, the heat from his running rushing straight to his outermost layers as it vented the only thing that could slow him down. The wind slapped against him, but he didn't care. The trees and bushes stood to impose him, but he didn't relent. The branches and tangles of vines reached out to drag themselves against him, but he didn't slow down. The only thing that made up Paul was his desire to live and the irresistable impulse to put as much distance between himself and the object of his immenant peril as physically possible. And for that, he'd need to run.

And so he ran. It was the only thing he remembered how to do anymore.

He'd never felt so cold and alone and vulnerable in his entire life.

After running for an indeterminate amount of time and feeling the need to take cover somewhere, Paul ran a good long ways more before finally ducking behind a tree and throwing himself against it, panting with his back against the woody structure as though it could save him. The feeling of standing still was repulsive to his senses, though all he could do was stand there and pant profusely, face pale as a sheet, eyes the size of dinner plates, trembling with a combination of fear and adrenaline. He tried to listen for signs that he was being followed, but all he could hear was the hammering of blood in his ears, his brain seemingly pulsing against the inside of his head like a base drum. Everything about him was just an extention of his heartbeat. Paul was just one giant heartbeat.

He gasped for air for a while before sucking in one last gulp of air, willing himself to be as still and silent as possible. Then, very slowly, he began to inch towards one end of the barrier behind him, stuck out his head, and looked for signs of pursuit.

And there he stood, silent and still, rigid as a board, tense as a coiled spring ready to fly apart and fling himself off into the dark as necessary. His eyes were almost all pupil to match the lighting around him - almost complete lightlessness - and the white of his eyes against the black of his pupil gave him a look not unlike that of a Sentret staring off into the foliage, attempting to locate the Persian that had been pursuing it for miles. He gasped out a muted breath when he couldn't hold it in anymore, breathing in as quietly as he could, trying to remain silent as he looked for his assailant.

The night had come softly, despite the ordeal that it had descended upon, and a delicate little haze had inched down over the land as the earth beneath it attempted to meet that of the air around it. Not a pokemon or miscelanious animal could be seen anywhere for miles, repulsed by the sensation of the arrival of a foul aura in the distance, and not a noise could be heard - not the chirp of a Kricketot, not the squeal of a Zubat, not the whisper of the wind...nothing. Still, silent, and not unlike the boy that was currently afraid for his life. It was like the scenery itself was mimicking him, having sensed the urgency of the situation and giving him a chance to save himself.

Paul must have stood there for five minutes, standing there as rigid as a board, ready to sprint for his life again or duck back into cover to pray for fortune. After a while, however, his senses began to return, and he finally decided that he hadn't been followed, sliding back behind his tree cover to inhale one last breath before heaving out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. His heart continued to hammer, albeit less intensely than before, and the fatigue of his exertion was starting to fade back into his awareness as the adrenaline started to fade. "...Arceus damn..."

A single, delicate noise - which could have been anything from a leaf shifting to the delicate flutter of a pair of Beautifly wings - was enough to silence him instantly, spine coiling again as the pace of his heart quickened. Against his better judgement, Paul swallowed the thick saliva in his mouth and slowly stuck his head back out around the tree to find the source of the noise.

He found it. Although it took him a second to realize that his face was a mere inch from the smiling face of Barry's.

Then he screamed. Like a girl. And shot into the air like a startled Meowth. I let out a harsh laugh, following up with a hard shove as Paul attempted to back away, sprawling him onto the ground. "Did you think you could get away that easily?" I asked, already smug with my triumph; I was here, Paul was here, and there was nothing he could do to escape me. He was at my mercy. "I'm the king of darkness, you dumbshit - this whole fucking forest is one big playground for me! Besides, you're so scared, I could smell you for _miles!"_

Paul continued to gasp and stare at me, let out helpless noises as he scrambled backwards, only to find that I was walking along with him, matching his pace. Realizing at last that he had been caught, he gave up, now resorting to begging for his life. "P-please d-d-don't kill me..."

At his feeble begging, I let out a harsh laugh, the echo of which resounded all around me. "Are you really so stupid? You think I give a shit whether or not you want to live? I've killed at least twenty other people and pokemon, and every one of them wanted to live, too. And they're still dead." I marched up to him now, continuing to broadcast a sinister, dark smile across Barry's features. "You're dead meat."

Overcome with the fear and dreadful realization, Paul let out a small sob of terror, tears dripping down his cheeks. He put up no further resistance, even as I bent down to grip him by the scruff of the shirt. "D-don't...please..."

I ignored him, smirking at the delicious fear that soaked up my arm through the contact I had with him, my tongue growing moist from saliva. Shifting Barry's current anatomy a bit, I made room for the organ that allowed me to levitate (the sensation was only slightly unpleasant, as I could feel it worming its way between Barry's intestines as it faded into existence) and, with Paul still within my grip, rose up into the air, bringing him along for the ride. He continued to beg for his life, whimpers and groans becoming more and more defined as our altitude increased, and I continued to ignore him.

When our heads broke through the tree line, I think it finally dawned on Paul that I wasn't listening to his pleas, as he fell horribly, dreadfully silent, now resorting to letting out short, terrified sobs. I only continued to smile.

I floated up a little ways further, then drifted over a couple of inches so that the sole of Barry's left shoe rested perfectly on the very tip of the large pine tree that he had tried to take cover behind, giving the illusion that I was balancing perfectly on it, even though I was still levitating. Suspending Paul out in front of me at arm's length, I dangled him over the infinite void of shadows that yawned open beneath us, absolute blackness marred only by the topmost of pine needles reflecting some of the moonlight. The trails of Paul's tears was a glassy white, at the angle I had him, and I grinned widely - how fitting that such an arrogant power hog ought to cry, now that he knew what it meant to be truly powerless. He had learned his lesson, alright. Not that it would save him now.

Barry's possessed orange eyes glowered darkly into Paul's fearful purple ones, and I almost laughed aloud, instead announcing to him, "Any last words?"

Paul winced like he'd been struck, casting a reluctant, fearful look down the fourty meters or so directly below him. I think he realized that he wouldn't survive the fall, as his fear spiked a hair before he looked back to me, expression helpless and desperate and hurt. "Why?" he whimpered, voice nearly nonexistent; if not for the silence of the night around us, I might not have heard him. "Why are you d-doing this...why me? W-what did I ever d-"

His query was cut off as I jerked him, and fearing he'd been released, Paul shrieked - literally, like a girl - both hands closing around my wrist fearfully. At his reaction, I could only laugh. "Hahaha! Oh, man...you really are pathetic, you know that? The guy I'm seeing now..._totally _different from the "truly talented" _trainer _that marched up to me...what, an hour ago? And you called _me _a whelp..."

Paul didn't find the situation so amusing, as he continued to stare at me, genuinely confounded on how I could be taking the delight I was in such a situation. "...is," he started weakly, gears slowly turning in his head, probably catching on the way I spat out the word "trainer," "is it because...I-I'm a trainer?"

I shrugged casually. "Part of it," I admitted; yes, trainers always rubbed me the wrong way. If something walked around in _your _territory and started to kidnap others like you, enslave them, and forced them into beating the hell out of each other again and again, they'd probably rub _you _the wrong way, too. "Although, to be perfectly honest, you just got in my way. I had a plan, see...Barry's father was supposed to come to the house. I was supposed to kill him. Not you, him." I frowned now, realizing that my time had probably run out and that Palmer had come back to an empty house. "...you're still in my way, you little parasite. He's probably gone by now."

Paul stared at me, as though I'd said something in another tongue. I waited a little bit and was about to drop him when he asked, "Is it...because of Barry? Th-that you're doing all this..?"

Not as stupid as he looked. Ironic that it had to come to this point for him to finally start using that brain of his. "...yes," I answered in a low voice against my better judgement, gripping the fistful of shirt that separated him from an infinite void beneath him a little tighter. "It's because of him. He ruined _everything._"

I could feel Barry's awareness growing gradually more attentive, focusing on me not that unlike Paul was. He didn't ask it, however, but Paul did it for him: "What did he do?"

A wave of anger started to seep up from beneath my soul, causing every muscle in Barry's body to slowly clench up one by one. The final was his jaw muscles, causing his teeth to grit together even as I answered, "He took Crescelia away from me."

Paul's eyes widened, as if realizing something. "So...he really caught her-?"

"Of course not, you _idiot!" _I roared at him, overcome with rage; my rancor was beating ferociously against the bars of its cage within me, demanding the blood it endlessly craved. "You think I would have let him enslave her like he did so many other innocent pokemon? You think I would have let that _thing _lay a grimy paw on _my _Crescelia?"

Without warning, my rage fell down like it had marched off a ledge, leaving a hollow feeling in me that brought tears to my eyes. "I tried to save her," I said weakly, no longer sure of who I was talking to. Was I even talking to anyone anymore? "I tried...I swear I did. I tore them apart...all their stupid pokemon...killed them all. I...I almost killed them, too, but..." My throat seized shut, the pressure behind Barry's face becoming unbearable to me, and I looked downward towards the tree I stood balanced upon, watching the trunk grow gradually wider before disappearing into the nothingness I suddenly wanted to be a part of... "H-he..."

_Go ahead, _Barry hissed, suddenly bold and mocking. _Say it. Tell him what I did. Tell him what I- _He stopped, feigning sudden realization. _...wait a minute...it wasn't me that killed her, was it? Why don't you tell him the truth, Darkrai? Who's _really _to blame here for all of this?_

I knew I was succumbing to his bait, but I snapped anyway. "Shut up!" I bellowed to, literally, the voice in my head. "Shut up, you little fuck! It _is _your fault! _You _did all this! Everything that happened is because of _you! _Do you hear me? It's all fucking _you, Barry!"_

Paul stared at me with a whole new kind of fear - that of being in the presence of a madman. I couldn't blame him, really. Not that I wasn't pissed off any less by it. "You shut up, too," I hissed at him in response to his unspoken words, eyes snapping into focus and glaring hard into his head, like I was trying to collapse his face and shove it out the other side. "Don't judge me. Who are you to judge me? You're nothing but a whelp - a weak, meaningless little _Wurmple _under my heel. You don't have a right to...none of you do! None of you..." My voice was gradually rising in intensity until I was full-out bellowing into Paul's face, anger welling up more and more from within me like blood out of a mortal wound. "Fucking humans, what is it about you freaks? What makes you parasites wheedle into everything and just screw everything up? I had it great - I had a home, Crescelia, maybe a future to look forward to, and now look at me! I'm a fucking psycho-killer, possessing teenagers and making prank calls to their daddies so I can kill them and make them watch! I already killed his mother - I killed his best friend, and I made him watch that, too! I threw her out into the ocean, gored on a chair like a fucking harpoon through a Magikarp! Why did this have to happen? Why did you fucks have to do this to me? _Why do you humans have to ruin everything?"_

My tirade came to a furious end, though I felt like I had accomplished nothing - like there was so much more hate and rage within me that I had yet to properly express. I was shaking now, fists clenched hard enough to physically lock the muscles in Barry's hands, his face flushed red from the anger I positively breathed of. His orange eyes had become a pair of pinpoint lasers I was using to scribe straight into Paul's fearful, bewildered eyes, trying through sheer force of will to focus the heat of my hate into a collumn and spew fire out of my eyes to incinerate the bastard right then and there; I'm surprised his eyelashes didn't start to curl from the heat radiating off of me. And Paul could only stare, unable to hide the obvious, unspoken accusation of "madman" with his gaze. And he was probably right.

But then his gaze shifted, and momentarily I became distracted, noting that the corner I'd shoved Barry into was starting to feel rather smug. To both of them I demanded "What?"

Barry proceeded to snicker within my head, uttering a mere three words in response to my inquiry: _Look behind you._

Frustrated with my not knowing, I acted completely on impulse and snapped my head around, practically snarling at whatever it was that Barry was aware of and Paul was so damn interested in.

To my shock, I found a yellow shape hovering about a dozen meters away in the air at about equal level with me, a pair of enlarged wings stretching out and vibrating slightly, forcing the air under it and all but hovering completely silent in midair. A pair of beedy black eyes stared hard at me, glimmering in the moonlight a gaze of condemnation, looking at me as though my very presence signified the ultimate injustice. It only took a second to identify the pokemon as a Dragonite, and it only took a second more to identify the shape of a rider on its back.

This was about the time when my heart skipped a beat...or stopped entirely.

My gaze locked with that the of the rider for only an instant before he shifted slightly, uttering a command to his Dragonite. Without a moment's hesitation, the large pokemon turned around in midair and, with a mighty flap of its wings, took off into the night, shape going from a nearby presence to a distant speck in seconds; the distant sound of thunder indicated when it had reached the speed of sound and split the night with a sonic boom.

And then it was gone.

I couldn't breath. I couldn't think - my mind had realized what had happened, but nothing else was working. It wouldn't register. Had I...just seen what I thought I did? A Dragonite, and its rider...why did that seem familiar? Wasn't that something I'd been thinking about a little while ago?

_I was waiting for Palmer. Palmer had a Dragonite. The Dragonite took him to the house. No one was there, so he went looking...and found me._

_He found me. __He heard me. __He knows. N__ow he's gone. __And there's no way I can catch up to him._

I was so shocked and stunned at this sudden realization that the muscles in Barry's arms went limp and, as a result, released Paul from my grip. He went tumbling down into the night with a scream of terror that can only come from one falling in the knowledge that they'll never live to stand up again.

But then, he realized something, thus why he stopped screaming: he hadn't hit the ground, and he wasn't falling. He was still about ten feet off the ground, and he was suspended in midair. Something was holding him by the back of the shirt. And that could only mean one thing...

Slowly, every muscle in my body the same consistancy as hardened concrete, an arm with flesh as black as the night itself raised Paul up, who was just now realizing the full extent of his predicament. Muscles rippled with bone-crushing strength as I brought Paul up, forcing his gaze to meet my own. I could feel the blood in his veins curdling from the terror - his eyes locked onto an endless portal of icy blue, shining at him a promise of death and a hate that could stop a bullet in its tracks. I'm genuinely surprised he didn't have a heart attack and die right then and there. _"Why," _I seethed, red creeping in along the edges of my vision, filling my head with the same hotness that came with a splash of blood, _"do you humans...always...ruin...**EVERYTHING!"**_

I didn't wait for his answer, and Paul was likely too terrified to offer one. Instead, I hefted his body up into the air like it was a rag doll, let out a roar that made the very night itself tremble in terror, and slammed him as hard as I could into the tree I'd nearly dropped him from.

He hit it hard enough to break bones, and I expected him to fall to the ground. Instead, however, he stuck - I realized why when my eye found the red harpoon lancing through his chest, dripping with his fluids from him being gored upon it. Paul was hacking now, gripping the branch jutting out of him like he could pull it out, eyes swimming with pain that bordered on the edge of disorientation. I could have left him there, staked to a tree and bleeding alone in the dark to let the Zubat suck him dry and the Starly peck out his eyes come morning, but my rancor wasn't satisfied. I wasn't finished with him yet.

I came up to him now, watching his face contort and shift rapidly between horror and agony before I gripped him by the neck and forcibly yanked him off the branch I'd stuck him to with a sickening _snap. _Paul was at once overcome with pain, eyes rolling around in their sockets in a pained daze, hands instinctively and blindly feeling over the hole in his chest just beneath his collarbone. Everything was a blur as I shot straight up into the air fast enough to make my ears pop - I didn't wait to let them readjust before raising Paul into the air and this time bringing him straight down - right onto the tip of the pine tree itself.

The pointed trunk was like a torpedo that stuck into him without hesitation, creating a second larger hole in him that he had difficulting choking on - I could tell I'd struck his other lung now. Not that I cared. Instead, I came around the trunk so that I was at Paul's side; then, I grabbed either part of him and, mustering up all my strength, started to drag him down.

The result was horrific. Immediately my efforts were met with a sickly crunching noise, both from the wood of the tree scraping against his innards, branches breaking as Paul was shoved past them, and the bones that were being pulverised as he was forced farther and farther down the tree. The first few meters were easy going until I came to the first set of major branches, where I had to put considerable effort into forcing him down further, but my considerable power combined with the rage pumping through me was ample enough to force the branches past their limits and send them tumbling down to the forest floor below, granting a now pain-numb and likely unconscious Paul access further down the length of the tree. The entire upper half of the trunk was stained a brilliant crimson before I was finally reaching my limits - the hole in Paul's chest had reached the near full diameter of his chest, and his body had snagged abruptly on the tree itself, the cavity within him refusing to grow any wider. Frustrated, I forced down on him even more, very much aware of the splintering noises that probably wasn't wood and the red now sliding freely down the bark itself, not caring about how much this disfigured the subject of my torment. I wasn't satisfied with him yet, and nobody was getting any rest until I'd had my fill.

I forced down. Paul gagged and twitched violently, but he slid no further down the length of the tree. I tried to force him farther down - I heard more cracks and snaps from within him, and his left arm was flailing wildly, but I didn't care; that wasn't good enough. I forced down more. And when that didn't work, I rose up farther into the air, let out a yell, and threw down the full weight of my momentum.

There was a loud _snap _as Paul's spine broke. A second later, something heavy hit the ground, followed by another something heavy. On either side of the tree was a half of Paul, staring blankly up into the air like he'd discovered something great, watching with dead eyes as a wave of red gushed down the pine tree he'd just been split in two by. The width of the tree had been two much, and my will was enough to tear him in half. Not even his body's structure could stand up against me.

I hovered there for quite some time, fists clenched from an anger that refused to ebb, staring at Paul's dead form with hard eyes, waiting for the satisfaction to come. It never came. Paul was dead, yes, but no matter what, Palmer was gone. He was gone, would always be gone, and nothing I could do - no number of people I killed - would change that. He was gone. It was over. He'd ruined everything, and now that he was dead, he couldn't feel pain. He wouldn't be afraid. He wouldn't feel anything anymore, and what he did would remain the same.

In the end, I'd accomplished absolutely nothing besides stain more blood on my hands.

_What's it like, Darkrai? _Barry taunted, swelled greatly with some kind of achievement. _You feel that? That's reality, Darkrai - something you're never going to change. No matter how many heads you smash in or how many bodies you pull in half, it'll never change. No matter how many lives you end, it'll never change. No matter how much you drown out the truth in senseless, savage violence, it'll never change._

I could practically envision Barry's smile widening to show every last one of his white teeth, orange eyes glimmering with smug defiance. _You lose, Darkrai._

I roared _**"SILENCE!" **_as loud as I could, scratching the inside of my throat with the sheer force that the air went through it. I bellowed in rage as he started to laugh, thrashing violently in both physical reality and in the cognitive realm I had him trapped. **_"SHUT UP! STOP LAUGHING- DAMMIT, SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU NOTHING!"_**

But no matter how loud I yelled or how hard I punched the ground or splintered a tree in rage, Barry wouldn't stop laughing - none of the terrifying images did anything to stop him, and nothing would keep him from laughing hysterically into my head. _That's right, Darkrai - keep on yelling and killing like you always do! Keep on hurting me! That always worked before! But you know what's different this time around? I'm not afraid of you anymore. Do you hear me? I'm not afraid - you can't control me! I'm not your little sock puppet! You can hurt me and curse me and yell and kick and scream all you want, but it doesn't matter what you do: I win, Darkrai! I fucking win this time! My dad's still alive, and he knows everything, and he'll come to save me and put your little terror streak to rest! Then we'll be together again, and me and him all the people you hurt will dance on your grave! I win! I win! I win, you bastard! **I WIN!**_

Just like he promised, nothing I could do - more violence, more threats, more cursing and shouting, more drowning him in the satanic images that would have crippled before - could stop him. No matter what I did, Barry had come out on top, my plans had been foiled, and the object of my desires was out of reach. Palmer was still alive. He could either run, or use his resources to gather up a resistence to stop me should I continue to hunt him. And if he ran, I couldn't catch him - his Dragonite was too fast. Ages faster than me. I had one chance to do this - one chance to destroy everything Barry had come to know and love - and no matter what I did now, I'd never be able to complete it. No matter what more I did to him, he'd always have something left. He'd always have hope. And now, when he wasn't afraid, I couldn't beat him. I couldn't destroy him - his father was gone, his fear was gone, and he was laughing. Laughing, laughing, laughing...he wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop laughing. Wouldn't stop. Wouldn't stop...

Unable to take it anymore, I shot up into the air, smashed through the treeline, and let out a roar of fury with such power that it could pierce the heavens and knock Arceus himself off of his damn throne. But it wouldn't change anything.

Nothing I could do could change the fact that tonight, Barry had won.

* * *

**_AN:_**

Woo! Finally updated! *happy music* Let's all take a second to give a damn. *gives damn* Aaaaand it's over. Moving on.

Yes, I'm not dead. Awesome. For not forgetting me, you get a cookie. *gives cookie* Awesome. Only took me a bazzilion months, but yes, the story is updated. I'm attempting to get my brain back into gear so I can actually update a few of my stories. Sorry about the wait, all; I promise I'mma get to work on getting the next chapter of Et tu up, too, so you can look forward to that.

Consider this my little way of wishing everyone a happy new year. Since, after all, it obviously can't be any worse than the last one. *shoots 2010* Next! XD


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